Are We Exclusive? Genomic Conflict and Imprinting in Monogamous vs Polygamous Populations
Paige Camaya, Nico Fernandes
Department of Biology
Faculty Supervisor: Scott Roy
Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic process where there is allele-specific expression of the allele inherited from the mother or the father. The kinship theory of genomic imprinting predicts that imprinting evolved as a result from conflict of interest between the maternal and paternal genome in offspring development. In mammals, it is advantageous for the paternal genes to extract more resources from the mother to ensure strong offspring development. Consistent with this, some paternally expressed genes are associated with growth in utero. This could come at the expense of the mother and other offspring, making it advantageous for the maternal genes to promote equal and controlled resource allocation to ensure the health of all progeny. This theory requires that all offspring share maternal genes, but not necessarily paternal genes. As such, we expect genomically imprinted genes to be more highly expressed in polygamous populations than in monogamous populations, since progeny in monogamous populations share both maternal and paternal genes. To test for greater expression of imprinted genes under polygamy we gathered RNA sequence (RNA-seq) data of a variety of mice species. We then mapped the RNA-seq to a reference genome to eventually measure differential gene expression between polygamous and monogamous mice.