{"doi":"10.7554/elife.90203.1","title":"The Rapidly Evolving X-linked miR-506 Family Finetunes Spermatogenesis to Enhance Sperm Competition","abstract":"Abstract Despite rapid evolution across eutherian mammals, the X-linked miR-506 family miRNAs are located in a region flanked by two highly conserved protein-coding genes (Slitrk2 and Fmr1) on the X chromosome. Intriguingly, these miRNAs are predominantly expressed in the testis, suggesting a potential role in spermatogenesis and male fertility. Here, we report that the X-linked miR-506 family miRNAs were derived from the MER91C DNA transposons and their sequences diverged via LINE1-mediated retrotransposition during evolution. Selective inactivation of individual miRNAs or clusters caused no discernable defects, but simultaneous ablation of five clusters containing nineteen members of the miR-506 family led to reduced male fertility in mice. Despite normal sperm counts, motility and morphology, the KO sperm were less competitive than wild-type sperm when subjected to a polyandrous mating scheme. Transcriptomic and bioinformatic analyses revealed that these X-linked miR-506 family miRNAs, in addition to targeting a set of conserved genes, have gained more targets that are critical for spermatogenesis and embryonic development during evolution. Our data suggest that the miR-506 family miRNAs function to enhance sperm competitiveness and reproductive fitness of the male by finetuning gene expression during spermatogenesis.","journal":"eLife","year":2024,"id":493148,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9466,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":691961,"name":"Yue Wang","orcid":"0000-0003-4671-8547","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":302275,"name":"Tong Zhou","orcid":"0000-0003-2361-1931","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":824170,"name":"Sheng Chen","orcid":"0000-0003-3530-1287","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":903110,"name":"Dayton Morris","orcid":"0000-0001-6683-7119","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1176201,"name":"Rubens Daniel Miserani Magalhães","orcid":"0000-0003-2282-3983","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":824570,"name":"Musheng Li","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":366283,"name":"Shawn Wang","orcid":"0000-0001-5122-0132","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":367858,"name":"Hetan Wang","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":242256,"name":"Yeming Xie","orcid":"0000-0002-3853-0512","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":366284,"name":"Hayden McSwiggin","orcid":"0000-0001-6371-8931","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1176560,"name":"Daniel Oliver","orcid":null,"position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":585318,"name":"Shuiqiao Yuan","orcid":"0000-0003-1460-7682","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":242269,"name":"Huili Zheng","orcid":"0000-0003-3030-2950","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":557776,"name":"Jaaved Mohammed","orcid":"0000-0002-7053-5575","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":182940,"name":"Eric C Lai","orcid":"0000-0002-8432-5851","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":468228,"name":"John R. McCarrey","orcid":"0000-0002-5784-9318","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":242271,"name":"Wei Yan","orcid":"0000-0001-9569-9026","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":242259,"name":"Zhuqing Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-3988-0733","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":78,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:09:00.148120Z","pmid":null,"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":[]}