57. Linking X-Y Gametologue Co-Expression Patterns to Sex Differences in Disease

Humans exhibit sex-differences in the prevalence of many medical conditions. These sex-biases reflect (in part) evolved sex-differences in gene expression, which may stem from functional divergence between sex-specific genes. Of particular interest are the gametologues: genes that have retained functional copies on the X and Y chromosomes despite having ceased recombination. Recent work suggests that X-Y gametologues exhibit tissue-specific patterns of co-expression and differing levels of functional equivalence. However, we lack an understanding of how these patterns may influence sex-biased diseases. Here, we introduce co-expression divergence (CED) as a new lens for probing potential functional divergence between X-Y gametologues.