Sunday 31 March 2019

gene expression - Imperfect dosage compensation


Dosage compensation is used to make up for different copy numbers of the major sex chromosomes in males and females (One X or Z chromosome in one and two in the other). Two main mechanisms of dosage compensation exist, inactivation and upregulation.


But dosage compensation is not entirely perfect, the amount of gene product from an upregulated X/Z-linked genes in the heterogametic sex is not exactly that of the two in the homogametic sex.




"In Drosophila, the male-specific lethal (MSL) ribonucleoprotein complex mediates dosage compensation by upregulating transcription from the single male X chromosome approximately twofold."



On average how well is dosage compensation performed? What is the variance like:




  • within a single chromosome (between genes)?




  • within species?





  • between species?






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