Proximity of the Macquarie perch and golden perch sex-linked SNPs to known sex-determining genes
Forty-four Macquarie perch genes (Appendix D, Table D1) and 45 golden perch genes (Table D2) found by BRAKER2 were annotated to genes or gene families that act as sex-determining genes in other fish species. Of these, one Macquarie perch gene (g10286 on scaffold 633, bases 131251-132300) and three golden perch genes (g1522, g23888 and g30513; Table D5), all annotated to the SOX gene family, were on the scaffolds containing sex-linked DArT SNPs and the 146-bp Macquarie perch sexing region. Three of these SOX genes- Macquarie perch gene g10286 and golden perch genes g1522 and g23888- were annotated to a function of regulating DNA-templated transcription (GO:0006355) and had best Blastn hits to SOX1b , SOX1a and SOX14 of other bony fishes, respectively (Appendix E). This suggests a role of theSOX transcription factor gene family regulating the fate of stem and progenitor cells during development (Kiefer, 2007), in sex determination of both perch species, with SOX1 gene being the strongest candidate.