Genetics: Early Online, published on April 26, 2019 as 10.1534/genetics.119.302232 Article/Investigation Instability of the pseudoautosomal boundary in house mice Andrew P Morgan∗, Timothy A Bell∗, James J Crowley∗; y; z, and Fernando Pardo-Manuel de Villena∗ ∗Department of Genetics and Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC yDepartment of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC zDepartment of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden April 26, 2019 Corresponding authors: Andrew P Morgan (
[email protected]) Fernando Pardo-Manuel de Villena (
[email protected]) 5049C Genetic Medicine Building Department of Genetics University of North Carolina Chapel Hill NC 27599-7264 Keywords: meiosis, recombination, pseudoautosomal region, sex chromosome evolution 1 Copyright 2019. Abstract Faithful segregation of homologous chromosomes at meiosis requires pairing and recombination. In taxa with dimorphic sex chromosomes, pairing between them in the heterogametic sex is limited to a narrow inter- val of residual sequence homology known as the pseudoautosomal region (PAR). Failure to form the obligate crossover in the PAR is associated with male infertility in house mice (Mus musculus) and humans. Yet despite this apparent functional constraint, the boundary and organization of the PAR is highly variable in mammals, and even between subspecies of mice. Here we estimate the genetic map in a previously-documented ex- pansion of the PAR in the Mus musculus castaneus subspecies and show that the local recombination rate is 100-fold higher than the autosomal background. We identify an independent shift in the PAR boundary in the Mus musculus musculus subspecies and show that it involves a complex rearrangement but still recombines in heterozygous males.