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Comment
. 2021 Apr 22;17(4):e1009494.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009494. eCollection 2021 Apr.

Putting the brakes on centromere drive in Mimulus

Ching-Ho Chang  1 , Harmit S Malik  1   2
Affiliations
Comment

Putting the brakes on centromere drive in Mimulus

Ching-Ho Chang et al. PLoS Genet. .
No abstract available

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Conflict of interest statement

I have read the journal’s policy and have the following conflicts: HSM is a member of the PLOS Genetics editorial board.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Three inferred stages of centromere drive and suppression in Mimulus guttatus.
In the first stage (“Centromere drive”), a chromosome with non-driving centromeres (D−) acquires structural mutations, such as an inversion, and expansion of a centromeric satellite, which confers a transmission advantage in asymmetric female meiosis. Subsequently, it accumulates additional genes that enhance the drive, resulting in D. Due to the ensuing costs to fertility, D chromosomes cannot fix in the population. In this scenario, suppressor alleles will arise in the second stage of this process (“Drive suppression”). One such suppressor allele may have arisen from a single amino acid variant of CenH3A. This allele underwent a selective sweep because it restored fitness in M. guttatus populations containing D chromosomes. Both driver and suppressor alleles are expected to coexist in populations due to frequency-dependent selection. Eventually, as suppressor alleles fix in populations, they negate the meiotic advantage of D chromosomes, which will then be lost and replaced by D− chromosomes in the third stage of the process (“Loss of drive”), resulting in fixed changes in CenH3A and potentially centromeric satellites.
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