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The Important Role of Sex-Related Sox Family Genes in the Sex Reversal of the Chinese Soft-Shelled Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis)

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Pelodiscus sinensis is an important aquatic economic species in China with sexual dimorphism. All-male breeding is becoming a research hotspot. Here, comparative transcriptome analyses of female, male, and pseudo-female gonads were performed. We found that the differences between mal...

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Autores principales: Wang, Yubin, Luo, Xiangzhong, Qu, Chunjuan, Xu, Tao, Zou, Guiwei, Liang, Hongwei
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8773217/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35053081
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology11010083
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author Wang, Yubin
Luo, Xiangzhong
Qu, Chunjuan
Xu, Tao
Zou, Guiwei
Liang, Hongwei
author_facet Wang, Yubin
Luo, Xiangzhong
Qu, Chunjuan
Xu, Tao
Zou, Guiwei
Liang, Hongwei
author_sort Wang, Yubin
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Pelodiscus sinensis is an important aquatic economic species in China with sexual dimorphism. All-male breeding is becoming a research hotspot. Here, comparative transcriptome analyses of female, male, and pseudo-female gonads were performed. We found that the differences between males and pseudo-females were mainly related to steroid hormone synthesis at the transcriptome level. When it comes to the sox family genes, sox3 may have a role in the process of sex reversal from male to pseudo-female, when sox8 and sox9 were inhibited by exogenous estrogen. ABSTRACT: The Chinese soft-shelled turtle Pelodiscus sinensis shows obvious sexual dimorphism. The economic and nutrition value of male individuals are significantly higher than those of female individuals. Pseudo-females which are base to all-male breeding have been obtained by estrogen induction, while the gene function and molecular mechanism of sex reversal remain unclear in P. sinensis. Here, comparative transcriptome analyses of female, male, and pseudo-female gonads were performed, and 14,430 genes differentially expressed were identified in the pairwise comparison of three groups. GO and KEGG analyses were performed on the differentially expressed genes (DEGs), which mainly concentrated on steroid hormone synthesis. Furthermore, the results of gonadal transcriptome analysis revealed that 10 sex-related sox genes were differentially expressed in males vs. female, male vs. pseudo-female, and female vs. pseudo-female. Through the differential expression analysis of these 10 sox genes in mature gonads, six sox genes related to sex reversal were further screened. The molecular mechanism of the six sox genes in the embryo were analyzed during sex reversal after E(2) treatment. In mature gonads, some sox family genes, such as sox9 sox12, and sox30 were highly expressed in the testis, while sox1, sox3, sox6, sox11, and sox17 were lowly expressed. In the male embryos, exogenous estrogen can activate the expression of sox3 and inhibit the expression of sox8, sox9, and sox11. In summary, sox3 may have a role in the process of sex reversal from male to pseudo-female, when sox8 and sox9 are inhibited. Sox family genes affect both female and male pathways in the process of sex reversal, which provides a new insight for the all-male breeding of the Chinese soft-shelled turtle.
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spelling pubmed-87732172022-01-21 The Important Role of Sex-Related Sox Family Genes in the Sex Reversal of the Chinese Soft-Shelled Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis) Wang, Yubin Luo, Xiangzhong Qu, Chunjuan Xu, Tao Zou, Guiwei Liang, Hongwei Biology (Basel) Article SIMPLE SUMMARY: Pelodiscus sinensis is an important aquatic economic species in China with sexual dimorphism. All-male breeding is becoming a research hotspot. Here, comparative transcriptome analyses of female, male, and pseudo-female gonads were performed. We found that the differences between males and pseudo-females were mainly related to steroid hormone synthesis at the transcriptome level. When it comes to the sox family genes, sox3 may have a role in the process of sex reversal from male to pseudo-female, when sox8 and sox9 were inhibited by exogenous estrogen. ABSTRACT: The Chinese soft-shelled turtle Pelodiscus sinensis shows obvious sexual dimorphism. The economic and nutrition value of male individuals are significantly higher than those of female individuals. Pseudo-females which are base to all-male breeding have been obtained by estrogen induction, while the gene function and molecular mechanism of sex reversal remain unclear in P. sinensis. Here, comparative transcriptome analyses of female, male, and pseudo-female gonads were performed, and 14,430 genes differentially expressed were identified in the pairwise comparison of three groups. GO and KEGG analyses were performed on the differentially expressed genes (DEGs), which mainly concentrated on steroid hormone synthesis. Furthermore, the results of gonadal transcriptome analysis revealed that 10 sex-related sox genes were differentially expressed in males vs. female, male vs. pseudo-female, and female vs. pseudo-female. Through the differential expression analysis of these 10 sox genes in mature gonads, six sox genes related to sex reversal were further screened. The molecular mechanism of the six sox genes in the embryo were analyzed during sex reversal after E(2) treatment. In mature gonads, some sox family genes, such as sox9 sox12, and sox30 were highly expressed in the testis, while sox1, sox3, sox6, sox11, and sox17 were lowly expressed. In the male embryos, exogenous estrogen can activate the expression of sox3 and inhibit the expression of sox8, sox9, and sox11. In summary, sox3 may have a role in the process of sex reversal from male to pseudo-female, when sox8 and sox9 are inhibited. Sox family genes affect both female and male pathways in the process of sex reversal, which provides a new insight for the all-male breeding of the Chinese soft-shelled turtle. MDPI 2022-01-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8773217/ /pubmed/35053081 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology11010083 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Wang, Yubin
Luo, Xiangzhong
Qu, Chunjuan
Xu, Tao
Zou, Guiwei
Liang, Hongwei
The Important Role of Sex-Related Sox Family Genes in the Sex Reversal of the Chinese Soft-Shelled Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis)
title The Important Role of Sex-Related Sox Family Genes in the Sex Reversal of the Chinese Soft-Shelled Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis)
title_full The Important Role of Sex-Related Sox Family Genes in the Sex Reversal of the Chinese Soft-Shelled Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis)
title_fullStr The Important Role of Sex-Related Sox Family Genes in the Sex Reversal of the Chinese Soft-Shelled Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis)
title_full_unstemmed The Important Role of Sex-Related Sox Family Genes in the Sex Reversal of the Chinese Soft-Shelled Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis)
title_short The Important Role of Sex-Related Sox Family Genes in the Sex Reversal of the Chinese Soft-Shelled Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis)
title_sort important role of sex-related sox family genes in the sex reversal of the chinese soft-shelled turtle (pelodiscus sinensis)
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8773217/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35053081
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology11010083
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