Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Han, Caihong
• Peng, Qionglin
• Su, Xiangbin
• Xing, Limin
• Ji, Xiaoxiao
• Pan, Yufeng

Titel

A male-specific doublesex isoform reveals an evolutionary pathway of sexual development via distinct alternative splicing mechanisms

Ist Teil von

• Communications biology, 2022-07, Vol.5 (1), p.728-728, Article 728

Ort / Verlag

London: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Abstract The doublesex / mab-3 related transcription factor ( Dmrt ) genes regulate sexual development in metazoans. Studies of the doublesex ( dsx ) gene in insects, in particular Drosophila melanogaster , reveal that alternative splicing of dsx generates sex-specific Dsx isoforms underlying sexual differentiation. Such a splicing-based mechanism underlying sex-specific Dmrt function is thought to be evolved from a transcription-based mechanism used in non-insect species, but how such transition occurs during evolution is not known. Here we identified a male-specific dsx transcript ( dsx M2 ) through intron retention (IR), in addition to previously identified dsx M and dsx F transcripts through alternative polyadenylation (APA) with mutually exclusive exons. We found that Dsx M2 had similarly masculinizing function as Dsx M . We also found that the IR-based mechanism generating sex-specific dsx transcripts was conserved from flies to cockroaches. Further analysis of these dsx transcripts suggested an evolutionary pathway from sexually monomorphic to sex-specific dsx via the sequential use of IR-based and APA-based alternative splicing.