Insights into convergent evolution of cosexuality in liverworts from the Marchantia quadrata genome
Sex chromosomes are expected to coevolve with their respective sex, potentially disfavoring their co-occurrence as cosexuality evolves. This effect is expected to be stronger where sex chromosomes are restricted to one sex, such as in plants expressing sex in their haploid stage. We assess this hypothesis in liverworts with U/V sex chromosomes, ancestral dioicy, and several independent transitions to monoicy (cosexuality). We report the chromosome-level genome assembly of Marchantia quadrata, which recently evolved monoicy, and perform comparative genomic analyses with its dioicous relative M. polymorpha. We find that monoicy evolved via retention of the V chromosome as a small ninth chromosome, complete loss of the U chromosome, and translocation of key U-linked genes to autosomes, among which the major sex-determining gene (Feminizer) acquired environmental/developmental regulation. Our findings parallel recent observations on Ricciocarpos natans, which evolved monoicy independently, suggesting genetic constraints that may make transitions to monoicy predictable in liverworts.
Authors
- Giacomo Potente (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4343-3952)
- Jerry Jenkins (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7943-3997)
- Shogo Kawamura (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3066-2940)
- Katsuyuki T. Yamato (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7130-0911)
- Rachel Walstead (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4372-2703)
- Katsushi Yamaguchi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6871-7882)
- Shuji Shigenobu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4640-2323)
- Takeshi Tanaka (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7547-7928)
- Jim Leebens‐Mack (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4811-2231)
- Navneet Kaur (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0185-5118)
- Takayuki Kohchi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9712-4872)
- Masaki Shimamura (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5665-5116)
- Péter Szövényi
- Tomáš Brůna (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9811-5532)
- Raymond Lee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8151-7479)
- Yukiko Yasui (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1534-0828)
- Jeremy Schmutz
- S Zama
- Eita Shimokawa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-8944-633X)
- Yuka Umeya
Institutions
- Hiroshima University (JP)
- National Institute for Basic Biology (JP)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- University of Georgia (US)
- Joint Genome Institute (US)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Kyoto University (JP)
- Carnegie Department of Plant Biology (US)
- HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology (US)
- Kindai University (JP)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Cell Reports
- Published
- 2025-04-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115503
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Bryophyte Studies and Records
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.03