RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Expansion of the HSFY gene family in pig lineages JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 012906 DO 10.1101/012906 A1 Benjamin M Skinner A1 Kim Lachani A1 Carole A Sargent A1 Fengtang Yang A1 Peter Ellis A1 Toby Hunt A1 Beiyuan Fu A1 Sandra Louzada A1 Carol Churcher A1 Chris Tyler-Smith A1 Nabeel A Affara YR 2014 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2014/12/19/012906.abstract AB Amplified gene families on sex chromosomes can harbour genes with important biological functions, especially relating to fertility. The HSFY family has amplified on the Y chromosome of the domestic pig (Sus scrofa), in an apparently independent event to an HSFY expansion on the Y chromosome of cattle (Bos taurus). Although the biological functions of HSFY genes are poorly understood, they appear to be involved in gametogenesis in a number of mammalian species, and, in cattle, HSFY gene copy number correlates with levels of fertility.We have investigated the HSFY family in domestic pigs, and other suid species including warthogs, bushpigs, babirusas and peccaries. The domestic pig contains at least two amplified variants of HSFY, distinguished predominantly by presence or absence of a SINE within the intron. Both these variants are expressed in testis, and both are present in approximately 50 copies each in a single cluster on the short arm of the Y. The longer form has multiple nonsense mutations rendering it likely non-functional, but many of the shorter forms still have coding potential. Other suid species also have these two variants of HSFY, and estimates of copy number suggest the HSFY family may have amplified independently twice during suid evolution. Given the association of HSFY gene copy number with fertility in cattle, HSFY is likely to play an important role in spermatogenesis in pigs also.