Sébastien Leclercq, Julien Thézé, Mohamed Amine Chebbi, Isabelle Giraud, Bouziane Moumen, Lise Ernenwein, Pierre Grève, Clément Gilbert, and Richard CordauxPlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"
<p>Sex determination is an evolutionarily ancient, key developmental pathway governing sexual differentiation in animals. Sex determination systems are remarkably variable between species or groups of species, however, and the evolutionary forces underlying transitions between these systems are poorly understood. Here we provide evidence indicating that the genome of *Wolbachia* bacterial endosymbionts was horizontally transferred into a chromosome of the common pillbug *Armadillidium vulgare*, which resulted in this chromosome evolving as a new female (W) sex chromosome. This represents a remarkable mechanism underpinning the birth of sex chromosomes. We conclude that bacteria can be powerful agents of evolutionary transitions in sex determination systems in animals.</p>
sex chromosome, horizontal transfer, Wolbachia, endosymbiont, isopod crustacean
Bioinformatics & Computational Biology, Genome Evolution, Molecular Evolution, Reproduction and Sex, Species interactions