Genetics and timing of sex determination in the East African cichlid fish Astatotilapia burtoni

BMC Genetics

Research Article

Astrid Böhne¹  Carolin Göppert¹  Walter Salzburger¹  Corina Heule¹ 

[1] Zoological Institute, University of Basel, Vesalgasse 1, 4051, Basel, Switzerland;

关键词: Sexual development;    Cichlidae;    Adaptive radiation;    Speciation;    Gene expression profiles;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12863-014-0140-5

 received in 2014-11-20, accepted in 2014-12-01,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe factors determining sex are diverse in vertebrates and especially so in teleost fishes. Only a handful of master sex-determining genes have been identified, however great efforts have been undertaken to characterize the subsequent genetic network of sex differentiation in various organisms. East African cichlids offer an ideal model system to study the complexity of sexual development, since many different sex-determining mechanisms occur in closely related species of this fish family. Here, we investigated the sex-determining system and gene expression profiles during male development of Astatotilapia burtoni, a member of the rapidly radiating and exceptionally species-rich haplochromine lineage.ResultsCrossing experiments with hormonally sex-reversed fish provided evidence for an XX-XY sex determination system in A. burtoni. Resultant all-male broods were used to assess gene expression patterns throughout development of a set of candidate genes, previously characterized in adult cichlids only.ConclusionsWe could identify the onset of gonad sexual differentiation at 11–12 dpf. The expression profiles identified wnt4B and wt1A as the earliest gonad markers in A. burtoni. Furthermore we identified late testis genes (cyp19a1A, gsdf, dmrt1 and gata4), and brain markers (ctnnb1A, ctnnb1B, dax1A, foxl2, foxl3, nanos1A, nanos1B, rspo1, sf-1, sox9A and sox9B).

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Heule et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.