Two transcriptionally distinct pathways drive female development in a reptile with both genetic and temperature dependent sex determination.
PLoS Genet
; 17(4): e1009465, 2021 04.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33857129
ABSTRACT
How temperature determines sex remains unknown. A recent hypothesis proposes that conserved cellular mechanisms (calcium and redox; 'CaRe' status) sense temperature and identify genes and regulatory pathways likely to be involved in driving sexual development. We take advantage of the unique sex determining system of the model organism, Pogona vitticeps, to assess predictions of this hypothesis. P. vitticeps has ZZ male ZW female sex chromosomes whose influence can be overridden in genetic males by high temperatures, causing male-to-female sex reversal. We compare a developmental transcriptome series of ZWf females and temperature sex reversed ZZf females. We demonstrate that early developmental cascades differ dramatically between genetically driven and thermally driven females, later converging to produce a common outcome (ovaries). We show that genes proposed as regulators of thermosensitive sex determination play a role in temperature sex reversal. Our study greatly advances the search for the mechanisms by which temperature determines sex.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Sex Chromosomes
/
Sex Determination Processes
/
Transcriptome
/
Lizards
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
PLoS Genet
Journal subject:
GENETICA
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Australia