Genetics: Early Online, published on January 10, 2013 as 10.1534/genetics.112.148635 Meiotic sex chromosome inactivation is disrupted in sterile hybrid male house mice Polly Campbell*,1, Jeffrey M. Good§, and Michael W. Nachman* *Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 §Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana 59812 1 Copyright 2013. Running head: Disrupted X inactivation in hybrid male mice Keywords: Haldane’s rule, meiosis, postmeiotic sex chromatin, speciation, spermatogenesis 1Corresponding author: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Biosciences West 333, 1041 E Lowell St., University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721. E-mail:
[email protected] 2 ABSTRACT In male mammals, the X and Y chromosomes are transcriptionally silenced in primary spermatocytes by meiotic sex chromosome inactivation (MSCI) and remain repressed for the duration of spermatogenesis. Here, we test the longstanding hypothesis that disrupted MSCI might contribute to the preferential sterility of heterogametic hybrid males. We studied a cross between wild-derived inbred strains of Mus musculus musculus and M. m. domesticus in which sterility is asymmetric: F1 males with a M. m. musculus mother are sterile or nearly so while F1 males with a M. m. domesticus mother are normal. In previous work, we discovered widespread over-expression of X-linked genes in the testes of sterile but not fertile F1 males. Here, we ask whether this over-expression is specifically a result of disrupted MSCI. To do this, we isolated cells from different stages of spermatogenesis and measured the expression of several genes using quantitative PCR. We found that X over-expression in sterile F1 primary spermatocytes is coincident with the onset of MSCI and persists in postmeiotic spermatids.