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Karger Publishers, Cytogenetic and Genome Research, 1-4(91), p. 148-156, 2000

DOI: 10.1159/000056836

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Unusual triploid males in a microchromosome-carrying clone of the Amazon molly, Poecilia formosa

Journal article published in 2000 by D. K. Lamatsch, I. Nanda, J. T. Epplen, M. Schmid, M. Schartl ORCID
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

The Amazon molly, <i>Poecilia formosa</i>, is an all-female fish of hybrid origin which reproduces by gynogenesis, i.e. it depends on sperm of males of closely related species to trigger parthenogenetic development of the embryo. Therefore the offspring is clonal and identical to the mother. In rare cases the exclusion mechanism fails and paternal introgression occurs. This may result either in triploid offspring – if the whole haploid chromosome set of the sperm fuses with the diploid egg nucleus – or in siblings with microchromosomes – if only subgenomic amounts of paternal DNA are included. In one of our diploid, microchromosome-carrying laboratory stocks we observed eight triploid individuals which all developed into males. We investigated the mitotic and meiotic chromosomes, the synaptonemal complex (SC), and sperm production of these males, and compared them to males of the gonochoristic parental species (<i>P. latipinna</i> and <i>P. mexicana</i>) and their hybrids. This comparison revealed that <i>P. formosa</i> males are functional males with reduced effective fertility. They show a deviation from the typical 23 bivalents in the synaptonemal complexes as well as in diakinesis due to the triploid state. They produced offspring but only with gynogenetic Amazon molly females. This shows that the probably aneuploid sperm from <i>P. formosa</i> males can trigger parthenogenetic development of unreduced eggs.