Last week we put out two new preprints!
Firstly, work led by William Toubiana, shows that our stick insects have very weird chromosome segregation. The major centromere protein, CenH3, binds to the autosomes in a monocentric pattern, but in a holocentric pattern on the X. Despite this, all chromosomes, attach to spindle microtubules at a single location, making this the first instance of a functionally monocentric species with holocentric-like attributes!
Secondly, in work led by Jelisaveta Djordjevic, we show that dosage compensation in male reproductive tissues is present only in the early nymphal stages. This is likely due to the establishment of meiotic sex chromosome inactivation during development.
Congrats to all authors for getting out these super cool papers!