期刊
DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY
卷 284, 期 2, 页码 500-508出版社
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2005.05.017
关键词
sex determination; sex-enriched; sexual dimorphism; tra-1; C. elegans
资金
- NICHD NIH HHS [HD07480] Funding Source: Medline
- NIGMS NIH HHS [GM53099] Funding Source: Medline
Sex determination in C elegans is controlled by the TRA-1 zinc finger protein, a Ci/GLI homolog that promotes female cell fates throughout the body. The regulatory hierarchy that controls TRA-1 is well established, but the downstream effectors that establish sexual dimorphism during larval development remain largely unknown. Here, we describe the use of cDNA microarrays to identify sex-enriched transcripts expressed during three stages of C. elegans larval development. By excluding previously identified germline-enriched transcripts, we focused on somatic sexual development. This approach identified a large number of sex-enriched transcripts that are good candidates to encode regulators of somatic sexual development. We found little overlap between genes with sex-enriched expression in early versus late larval development, indicating that distinct sexual regulatory programs operate at these times. Genes with sex-enriched expression are found throughout the genome, with no strong bias between autosomes and X chromosomes. Reporter gene analysis revealed that these genes are expressed in highly specific patterns in a variety of sexually dimorphic cells. We searched for TRA-1 consensus DNA binding sites near genes with sex-enriched expression, and found that most strongly sex-enriched mRNAs are likely to be regulated indirectly by TRA-1. These results suggest that TRA-1 controls sexual dimorphism through a small number of intermediary regulators rather than by acting directly on the full constellation of genes involved in sex-specific differentiation. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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