Finding clues to the riddle of sex determination in zebrafish.
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Date
2016-03
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Abstract
How sex is determined has been one of the most intriguing puzzles in biology since antiquity. Although a fundamental
process in most metazoans, there seems to be myriad of ways in which sex can be determined – from genetic to
environmental sex determination. This variation is limited mainly to upstream triggers with the core of sex determination
pathway being conserved. Zebrafish has gained prominence as a vertebrate model system to study development
and disease. However, very little is known about its primary sex determination mechanism. Here we review our
current understanding of the sex determination in zebrafish. Zebrafish lack identifiable heteromorphic sex chromosomes
and sex is determined by multiple genes, with some influence from the environment. Recently, chromosome 4
has been identified as sex chromosome along with few sex-linked loci on chromosomes 5 and 16. The identities of
candidate sex-linked genes, however, have remained elusive. Sex in zebrafish is also influenced by the number of
meiotic oocytes in the juvenile ovary, which appear to instruct retention of the ovarian fate. The mechanism and
identity of this instructive signal remain unknown. We hypothesize that sex in zebrafish is a culmination of
combinatorial effects of the genome, germ cells and the environment with inputs from epigenetic factors translating
the biological meaning of this interaction.
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Epigenetic factors, juvenile ovary, PGC, sex determination, zebrafish, ‘sex-biased‘ epigenome
Citation
Nagabhushana A, Mishra Rakesh K. Finding clues to the riddle of sex determination in zebrafish. Journal of Biosciences. 2016 Mar; 41(1): 145-155.