Androgenesis

Androgenesis is a system of asexual reproduction that requires the presence of eggs and occurs when a zygote is produced with only paternal nuclear genes. During standard sexual reproduction, one female and one male parent each produce haploid gametes (such as a sperm or egg cell, each containing only a single set of chromosomes), which recombine to create offspring with genetic material from both parents. However, in androgenesis, there is no recombination of maternal and paternal chromosomes, and only the paternal chromosomes are passed down to the offspring (the inverse of this is gynogenesis, where only the maternal chromosomes are inherited, which is more common than androgenesis).[1] The offspring produced in androgenesis will still have maternally inherited mitochondria, as is the case with most sexually reproducing species.

One of two things can occur to produce offspring with exclusively paternal genetic material: the maternal nuclear genome can be eliminated from the zygote, or the female can produce an egg with no nucleus, resulting in an embryo developing with only the genome of the male gamete.

Androgenesis blurs the lines between sexual and asexual reproduction–it is not strictly a form of asexual reproduction because both male and female gametes are required. However, it is not strictly a form of sexual reproduction because the offspring have uniparental nuclear DNA that has not undergone recombination, and the proliferation of androgenesis can lead to exclusively asexually reproducting species.[1]

Androgenesis occurs in nature in many organisms. like plants[2], invertebrates (for example, clams,[3] stick insects,[4] some ants,[5] bees,[2] flies[6] and parasitic wasps[2]) and vertebrates (mainly amphibians[7] and fish[2][8]). The Androgenesis has been observed in genetically modified laboratory mice.[9]

  1. ^ a b Pigneur, L.-M.; Hedtke, S. M.; Etoundi, E.; Van Doninck, K. (2012). "Androgenesis: a review through the study of the selfish shellfish Corbicula spp". Heredity. 108 (6): 581–591. doi:10.1038/hdy.2012.3. ISSN 1365-2540. PMC 3356815.
  2. ^ a b c d Schwander, Tanja; Oldroyd, Benjamin P (28 Sep 2008). "Androgenesis: where males hijack eggs to clone themselves".
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hedtke-2008 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Tinti, Fausto; Scali, Valerio (November 1992). "Genome exclusion and gametic dapi—dna content in the hybridogenetic Bacillus rossius—grandii benazzii complex (insecta phasmatodea)". Molecular Reproduction and Development. 33 (3): 235–242. doi:10.1002/mrd.1080330302. PMID 1449790.
  5. ^ Fournier, Denis; Estoup, Arnaud; Orivel, Jérôme; Foucaud, Julien; Jourdan, Hervé; Breton, Julien Le; Keller, Laurent (June 2005). "Clonal reproduction by males and females in the little fire ant". Nature. 435 (7046): 1230–1234. doi:10.1038/nature03705. PMID 15988525.
  6. ^ Komma, D J; Endow, S A (5 December 1995). "Haploidy and androgenesis in Drosophila". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 92 (25): 11884–11888. doi:10.1073/pnas.92.25.11884. PMC 40507. PMID 8524868.
  7. ^ "All-male hybrids of a tetrapod Pelophylax esculentus share its origin and genetics of maintenance". 28 Sep 2024.
  8. ^ Matos, I.; Machado, M.P.; Sucena, é.; Collares-Pereira, M.J.; Schartl, M.; Coelho, M.M. (2010). "Evidence for Hermaphroditism in the Squalius alburnoides Allopolyploid Fish Complex". Sexual Development. 4 (3): 170–175. doi:10.1159/000313359.
  9. ^ Ledford, Heidi (2023). "Making mice with two dads: this biologist rewrote the rules on sexual reproduction". Nature. 624 (7992): 499. Bibcode:2023Natur.624..499L. doi:10.1038/d41586-023-03922-6. PMID 38093054.