2016年10月13日，国际学术期刊《Genome biology and evolution》在线发表了中国科学院水生生物研究所何舜平研究组和多伦多大学张兆雷教授合作题为“Both male-biased and female-biased genes evolve faster in fish genomes”的研究论文，研究在鱼类性别差异表达基因进化动态的研究取得新进展。杨连东博士为论文第一作者，何舜平研究员为论文通讯作者。

在地球上的许多物种中，雌性个体与雄性个体之间通常在行为、生理以及外部形态方面均呈现出显著的差异。而这种雌雄个体之间的差异主要是由于基因在雌雄个体间表达水平上的差异所导致的。因此，对雌雄性别差异表达基因的研究对于深入理解雌雄个体之间的差异具有重要的意义。

研究组通过深入分析斑马鱼雌雄个体之间不同组织的转录组数据，对斑马鱼中雌雄性别差异表达基因进行了鉴定及进化动态分析。分析结果如下：(1)斑马鱼雌雄之间存在大量的性别差异表达基因，且主要来源于性腺;(2)斑马鱼性别差异表达基因多数是在组织中特异表达的;(3)鱼类中雄性高表达基因与雌性高表达基因均发生了加速进化;(4)鱼类中雄性高表达基因与雌性高表达基因均具有减少的最优密码子使用频率;(5)适应性进化参与了斑马鱼性别差异表达基因的进化。

原文链接：

Both male-biased and female-biased GENEs evolve faster in fish genomes

原文摘要：

Males and females often display extensive phenotypic differences, and many of these sexual dimorphisms are thought to result from differences between males and females in expression of genes present in both sexes. Sex-biased genes have been shown to exhibit accelerated rates of evolution in a wide array of species, however the cause of this remains enigmatic. In this study, we investigate the extent and evolutionary dynamics of sex-biased gene expression in zebrafish. Our results indicate that both male-biased genes and female-biased genes exhibit accelerated evolution at the protein level. In order to differentiate between adaptive and non-adaptive causes, we tested for codon usage bias and signatures of different selective regimes in our sequence data. Our results show that both male- and female-biased genes show signatures consistent with adaptive evolution. In order to test the generality of our findings across fish, we also analyzed publicly available data on sticklebacks, and found results consistent with our findings in zebrafish.