The switch of secondary sex determination in protandrous black porgy, Acanthopagrus schlegeli.

ABSTRACT

Hermaphrodites have both sexes during their life, including an initial primary sex determination and in later stage maintenance one of the sexual fates (secondary sex determination). Sex change (secondary sex determination) occurs in animals, but it is lost in amphibians through, mammals in vertebrates. Teleosts have various strategies and mechanisms of sex determination including genetic and environmental cues. However, the mechanisms by which the cues guide sex change are complicated in fish. This manuscript reviews our understanding of these processes in protandrous black porgy at the gonadal and neuroendocrine levels. Our studies addressed the process of sex change through brain-pituitary-gonad axis, and then secondary sex determination was switched by the fate of testis.