Dissection of a Y-autosome translocation in Cryptomys hottentotus (Rodentia, Bathyergidae) and implications for the evolution of a meiotic sex chromosome chain

International audienceWe describe the outcome of a comprehensive cytogenetic survey of the common mole-rat, Cryptomys hottentotus, based on G and C banding, fluorescence in situ hybridisation and the analysis of meiotic chromosomes using immunostaining of proteins involved in the formation of synaptonemal complex (SCP1 and SCP3). We identified the presence of a Y-autosome translocation that is responsible for a fixed diploid number difference between males (2n=53) and females (2n=54), a character that likely defines the C. hottentotus lineage. Immunostaining, combined with C banding of spermatocytes, revealed a linearised sex trivalent with X-1 at one end and X-2 at the other, with evidence of reduced recombination between Y and X-2 that seems to be heterochromatin dependant in the C. hottentotus lineage. We suggest that this could depict the likely initial step in the differentiation of a true neo-X, and that this may mimic an early stage in the mammalian meiotic chain formation, an evolutionary process that has been taken to an extreme in a monotreme mammal, the platypus