Cargando…
Sexual Development of the Hermaphroditic Scallop Argopecten irradians Revealed by Morphological, Endocrine and Molecular Analysis
Simultaneous or functional hermaphrodites possessing both ovary and testis at the same time are good materials for studying sexual development. However, previous research on sex determination and differentiation was mainly conducted in gonochoristic species and studies on simultaneous hermaphrodites...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2021
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8007870/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33796533 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2021.646754 |
_version_ | 1783672579899260928 |
---|---|
author | Wei, Huilan Li, Wanru Liu, Tian Li, Yajuan Liu, Liangjie Shu, Ya Zhang, Lijing Wang, Shi Xing, Qiang Zhang, Lingling Bao, Zhenmin |
author_facet | Wei, Huilan Li, Wanru Liu, Tian Li, Yajuan Liu, Liangjie Shu, Ya Zhang, Lijing Wang, Shi Xing, Qiang Zhang, Lingling Bao, Zhenmin |
author_sort | Wei, Huilan |
collection | PubMed |
description | Simultaneous or functional hermaphrodites possessing both ovary and testis at the same time are good materials for studying sexual development. However, previous research on sex determination and differentiation was mainly conducted in gonochoristic species and studies on simultaneous hermaphrodites are still limited. In this study, we conducted a combined morphological, endocrine and molecular study on the gonadal development of a hermaphroditic scallop Argopecten irradians aged 2–10 month old. Morphological analysis showed that sex differentiation occurred at 6 months of age. By examining the dynamic changes of progesterone, testosterone and estradiol, we found testosterone and estradiol were significantly different between the ovaries and testes almost throughout the whole process, suggesting the two hormones may be involved in scallop sex differentiation. In addition, we identified two critical sex-related genes FoxL2 and Dmrt1L, and investigated their spatiotemporal expression patterns. Results showed that FoxL2 and Dmrt1L were female- and male-biased, respectively, and mainly localized in the germ cells and follicular cells, indicating their feasibility as molecular markers for early identification of sex. Further analysis on the changes of FoxL2 and Dmrt1L expression in juveniles showed that significant sexual dimorphic expression of FoxL2 occurred at 2 months of age, earlier than that of Dmrt1L. Moreover, FoxL2 expression was significantly correlated with estradiol/testosterone ratio (E(2)/T). All these results indicated that molecular sex differentiation occurs earlier than morphological sex differentiation, and FoxL2 may be a key driver that functions through regulating sex steroid hormones in the scallop. This study will deepen our understanding of the molecular mechanism underlying sex differentiation and development in spiralians. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8007870 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-80078702021-03-31 Sexual Development of the Hermaphroditic Scallop Argopecten irradians Revealed by Morphological, Endocrine and Molecular Analysis Wei, Huilan Li, Wanru Liu, Tian Li, Yajuan Liu, Liangjie Shu, Ya Zhang, Lijing Wang, Shi Xing, Qiang Zhang, Lingling Bao, Zhenmin Front Cell Dev Biol Cell and Developmental Biology Simultaneous or functional hermaphrodites possessing both ovary and testis at the same time are good materials for studying sexual development. However, previous research on sex determination and differentiation was mainly conducted in gonochoristic species and studies on simultaneous hermaphrodites are still limited. In this study, we conducted a combined morphological, endocrine and molecular study on the gonadal development of a hermaphroditic scallop Argopecten irradians aged 2–10 month old. Morphological analysis showed that sex differentiation occurred at 6 months of age. By examining the dynamic changes of progesterone, testosterone and estradiol, we found testosterone and estradiol were significantly different between the ovaries and testes almost throughout the whole process, suggesting the two hormones may be involved in scallop sex differentiation. In addition, we identified two critical sex-related genes FoxL2 and Dmrt1L, and investigated their spatiotemporal expression patterns. Results showed that FoxL2 and Dmrt1L were female- and male-biased, respectively, and mainly localized in the germ cells and follicular cells, indicating their feasibility as molecular markers for early identification of sex. Further analysis on the changes of FoxL2 and Dmrt1L expression in juveniles showed that significant sexual dimorphic expression of FoxL2 occurred at 2 months of age, earlier than that of Dmrt1L. Moreover, FoxL2 expression was significantly correlated with estradiol/testosterone ratio (E(2)/T). All these results indicated that molecular sex differentiation occurs earlier than morphological sex differentiation, and FoxL2 may be a key driver that functions through regulating sex steroid hormones in the scallop. This study will deepen our understanding of the molecular mechanism underlying sex differentiation and development in spiralians. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-03-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8007870/ /pubmed/33796533 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2021.646754 Text en Copyright © 2021 Wei, Li, Liu, Li, Liu, Shu, Zhang, Wang, Xing, Zhang and Bao. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Cell and Developmental Biology Wei, Huilan Li, Wanru Liu, Tian Li, Yajuan Liu, Liangjie Shu, Ya Zhang, Lijing Wang, Shi Xing, Qiang Zhang, Lingling Bao, Zhenmin Sexual Development of the Hermaphroditic Scallop Argopecten irradians Revealed by Morphological, Endocrine and Molecular Analysis |
title | Sexual Development of the Hermaphroditic Scallop Argopecten irradians Revealed by Morphological, Endocrine and Molecular Analysis |
title_full | Sexual Development of the Hermaphroditic Scallop Argopecten irradians Revealed by Morphological, Endocrine and Molecular Analysis |
title_fullStr | Sexual Development of the Hermaphroditic Scallop Argopecten irradians Revealed by Morphological, Endocrine and Molecular Analysis |
title_full_unstemmed | Sexual Development of the Hermaphroditic Scallop Argopecten irradians Revealed by Morphological, Endocrine and Molecular Analysis |
title_short | Sexual Development of the Hermaphroditic Scallop Argopecten irradians Revealed by Morphological, Endocrine and Molecular Analysis |
title_sort | sexual development of the hermaphroditic scallop argopecten irradians revealed by morphological, endocrine and molecular analysis |
topic | Cell and Developmental Biology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8007870/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33796533 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2021.646754 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT weihuilan sexualdevelopmentofthehermaphroditicscallopargopectenirradiansrevealedbymorphologicalendocrineandmolecularanalysis AT liwanru sexualdevelopmentofthehermaphroditicscallopargopectenirradiansrevealedbymorphologicalendocrineandmolecularanalysis AT liutian sexualdevelopmentofthehermaphroditicscallopargopectenirradiansrevealedbymorphologicalendocrineandmolecularanalysis AT liyajuan sexualdevelopmentofthehermaphroditicscallopargopectenirradiansrevealedbymorphologicalendocrineandmolecularanalysis AT liuliangjie sexualdevelopmentofthehermaphroditicscallopargopectenirradiansrevealedbymorphologicalendocrineandmolecularanalysis AT shuya sexualdevelopmentofthehermaphroditicscallopargopectenirradiansrevealedbymorphologicalendocrineandmolecularanalysis AT zhanglijing sexualdevelopmentofthehermaphroditicscallopargopectenirradiansrevealedbymorphologicalendocrineandmolecularanalysis AT wangshi sexualdevelopmentofthehermaphroditicscallopargopectenirradiansrevealedbymorphologicalendocrineandmolecularanalysis AT xingqiang sexualdevelopmentofthehermaphroditicscallopargopectenirradiansrevealedbymorphologicalendocrineandmolecularanalysis AT zhanglingling sexualdevelopmentofthehermaphroditicscallopargopectenirradiansrevealedbymorphologicalendocrineandmolecularanalysis AT baozhenmin sexualdevelopmentofthehermaphroditicscallopargopectenirradiansrevealedbymorphologicalendocrineandmolecularanalysis |