Protein markers of synaptic behavior and chromatin remodeling of the neo-XY body in phyllostomid bats

Abstract

The XX/XY system is the rule among mammals. However, many exceptions from this general pattern have been discovered since the last decades. One of these non-conventional sex chromosome mechanisms is the multiple sex chromosome system, which is evolutionary fixed among many bat species of the family Phyllostomidae, and has arisen by a translocation between one original gonosome (X or Y chromosome), and an autosome, giving rise to a “neo-XY body.” The aim of this work is to study the synaptic behavior and the chromatin remodeling of multiple sex chromosomes in different species of phyllostomid bats using electron microscopy and molecular markers. Testicular tissues from adult males of the species Artibeus lituratus, Artibeus planirostris, Uroderma bilobatum, and Vampyrodes caraccioli from the eastern Amazonia were analyzed by optical/electron microscopy and immunofluorescence of meiotic proteins involved in synapsis (SYCP3 and SYCE3), sister-chromatid cohesion (SMC3), and chromatin silencing (BRCA1, γ-H2AX, and RNApol 2). The presence of asynaptic axes—labeled by BRCA1 and γ-H2AX—at meiotic prophase in testes that have a normal development of spermatogenesis, suggests that the basic mechanism that arrests spreading of transcriptional silencing (meiotic sex chromosome inactivation (MSCI)) to the autosomal segments may be per se the formation of a functional synaptonemal complex between homologous or non-homologous regions, and thus, this SC barrier might be probably related to the preservation of fertility in these systems.