{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pgen.1010990","title":"Functional dissection and assembly of a small, newly evolved, W chromosome-specific genomic region of the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis","abstract":"Genetic triggers for sex determination are frequently co-inherited with other linked genes that may also influence one or more sex-specific phenotypes. To better understand how sex-limited regions evolve and function, we studied a small W chromosome-specific region of the frog Xenopus laevis that contains only three genes (dm-w, scan-w, ccdc69-w) and that drives female differentiation. Using gene editing, we found that the sex-determining function of this region requires dm-w but that scan-w and ccdc69-w are not essential for viability, female development, or fertility. Analysis of mesonephros+gonad transcriptomes during sexual differentiation illustrates masculinization of the dm-w knockout transcriptome, and identifies mostly non-overlapping sets of differentially expressed genes in separate knockout lines for each of these three W-specific gene compared to wildtype sisters. Capture sequencing of almost all Xenopus species and PCR surveys indicate that the female-determining function of dm-w is present in only a subset of species that carry this gene. These findings map out a dynamic evolutionary history of a newly evolved W chromosome-specific genomic region, whose components have distinctive functions that frequently degraded during Xenopus diversification, and evidence the evolutionary consequences of recombination suppression.","journal":"PLoS Genetics","year":2023,"id":366188,"datarank":0.29188652235829704,"base_score":1.9459101490553132,"endowment":1.9459101490553132,"self_citation_contribution":0.29188652235829704,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.29188652235829704,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":6,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9213,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":332032,"name":"Danielle C. Jordan","orcid":"0000-0001-5267-7724","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1122874,"name":"Lindsey M. Kukoly","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":972060,"name":"Sarah Burton","orcid":"0000-0003-3077-6304","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1122875,"name":"Emmanuela U. Anele","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":392474,"name":"Jacek M. Kwiecień","orcid":"0000-0002-0128-9307","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1122422,"name":"Marie-Theres Gansauge","orcid":"0000-0003-1749-1873","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1122876,"name":"Sinthu Senthillmohan","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":798895,"name":"Eli Greenbaum","orcid":"0000-0003-1674-1316","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":7665,"name":"Matthias Meyer","orcid":"0000-0002-4760-558X","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":332033,"name":"Marko E. Horb","orcid":"0000-0002-5067-0518","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":321327,"name":"Ben J. Evans","orcid":"0000-0002-9512-8845","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":332028,"name":"Caroline M. S. Cauret","orcid":"0000-0002-0886-5450","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":82,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:14:55.198227Z","pmid":"37792893","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}