A Tandem Duplicate of Anti-Mullerian Hormone with a Missense SNP on the Y Chromosome Is Essential for Male Sex Determination in Nile Tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus.
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ABSTRACT: Variation in the TGF-? signaling pathway is emerging as an important mechanism by which gonadal sex determination is controlled in teleosts. Here we show that amhy, a Y-specific duplicate of the anti-Müllerian hormone (amh) gene, induces male sex determination in Nile tilapia. amhy is a tandem duplicate located immediately downstream of amh?-y on the Y chromosome. The coding sequence of amhy was identical to the X-linked amh (amh) except a missense SNP (C/T) which changes an amino acid (Ser/Leu92) in the N-terminal region. amhy lacks 5608 bp of promoter sequence that is found in the X-linked amh homolog. The amh?-y contains several insertions and deletions in the promoter region, and even a 5 bp insertion in exonVI that results in a premature stop codon and thus a truncated protein product lacking the TGF-? binding domain. Both amhy and amh?-y expression is restricted to XY gonads from 5 days after hatching (dah) onwards. CRISPR/Cas9 knockout of amhy in XY fish resulted in male to female sex reversal, while mutation of amh?-y alone could not. In contrast, overexpression of Amhy in XX fish, using a fosmid transgene that carries the amhy/amh?-y haplotype or a vector containing amhy ORF under the control of CMV promoter, resulted in female to male sex reversal, while overexpression of Amh?-y alone in XX fish could not. Knockout of the anti-Müllerian hormone receptor type II (amhrII) in XY fish also resulted in 100% complete male to female sex reversal. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that the duplicated amhy with a missense SNP is the candidate sex determining gene and amhy/amhrII signal is essential for male sex determination in Nile tilapia. These findings highlight the conserved roles of TGF-? signaling pathway in fish sex determination.
SUBMITTER: Li M
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4654491 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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