In most eukaryotes, aerobic respiration requires interactions between autosomally-
encoded genes (Ninteract genes) and mitochondrial DNA, RNA, and protein. In species
where females are philopatric, contrasting distributions of genetic variation in mito-
chondrial and nuclear genomes creates variation in mitonuclear interactions that may be
subject to natural selection. To test this expectation, we turned to a group with extreme
female philopatry: the macaque monkeys. We examined four genomic datasets from (i)
wild caught and (ii) captive populations of rhesus macaque, which is the most widely
distributed non-human primate, and (iii) the stump-tailed macaque and (iv) a subspecies
of longtail macaque, both of whose mitochondrial DNA is introgressed from a highly di-
verged ancestor. We identified atypically long runs of homozygosity, low polymorphism,
high differentiation and/or rapid protein evolution associated with Ninteract genes com-
pared to non-Ninteract genes. These metrics suggest a subset of Ninteract genes were
independently subject to natural selection in multiple species. Selection on mitonuclear
interactions is thus a factor in macaque genome evolution that could have influenced as-
pects of macaque societies including species diversity, ecological breadth, female-biased
adult sex ratio and demography, sexual dimorphism, and mitonuclear phylogenomics. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/28231 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Zhu, Jianlong |
| Contributors | Evans, Ben, Biology |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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