ZPs and Juno molecular positive selection along Pantherinae lineage

PISCIOTTANO, FRANCISCO; PENNA, CLEMENTINA; SARAGÜETA, PATRICIA; BRUQUE, CARLOS DAVID

Ciudad Autónoma Buenos Aires

Simposio; 3er Simposio Argentino de Jóvenes Investigadores en Bioinformática; 2018

Regional Student Group (RSG) associated to ISCB - Argentina

The mammalian fertilization process has been extensively described by both physiology and molecular biology. Zona Pellucida (ZP) and Juno oocyte proteins play a key role in thisprocess facilitating the interaction and fusion between the oocyte and the sperm respectively. Their interactions with sperm counterparts constitute a pre-cigotic reproductiveisolation mechanism. Owing to protein specificity of these interactions, they are involved in the species-specific barrier. The jaguar (Panthera onca) genome release and recentintrogression and hybridization genomic analysis revealed that unusually high rates of fertilization among pantherids could be the cause of the complex patterns of historical inter-specific hybridization found in the Pantherinae lineage, particularly between Panthera leo and Panthera onca. We aimed to uncover the underlying molecular basis of this inter-species crossing and evolution of the functional capacities of pantherids ZP and JUNO proteins.