Evolutionary steps of sex chromosomes are reflected in retrogenes

Abstract

It has been shown that selective pressure to compensate for the silencing of the sex chromosomes during male meiosis resulted in many X-linked genes being duplicated as functional retrogenes on autosomes. Sex chromosome silencing in males was probably stratified during evolution, in accordance with the stratified diversification of the sex chromosomes. Here I show that the timing of the retrocopying events is associated with the timing of the X-Y differentiation of the region of X chromosome housing the parental copy of the gene.