Reanalysis of Ohno's hypothesis on conservation of the size of the X chromosome in mammals

In 1964, Susumu Ohno, an evolutionary biologist, hypothesized that the size of X chromosome was conserved in mammalian evolution, and that this was based on chromosomal length. Today, unlike Ohno's method which was based on estimated lengths, we know the exact lengths of some mammalian sequences. The aim of this study was to reanalyze Ohno's hypothesis. In mammalian species, variation in the length of the X chromosome is greater than in the autosomes; however, this variation is not statistically significant. This means that differences in chromosomal length occur equally in the X chromosome and in the autosomes. Interspersed nuclear elements and genetic rearrangements were analyzed to maintain the same variance between the length of the X chromosome and the autosomes. The X chromosome contained fewer short interspersed elements (SINEs) (0.90 on average); however, it did contain more long interspersed elements (LINEs) than did autosomes (1.56 on average). An overall correlation of LINEs and SINEs with genetic rearrangements was observed; however, synteny breaks were more closely associated with LINEs in the autosomes, and with SINEs in the X chromosome. These results suggest that the chromosome-specific activities of LINEs and SINEs result in the same variance between the lengths of the X chromosome and the autosomes. This is based on the function of interspersed nuclear elements, such as LINEs, which can inactivate the X chromosome and the reliance of non-autonomous SINEs on LINEs for transposition.