Sex Determination across Evolution Connecting the Dots 英文参考文献.docVIP

Open access, freely available online Primer Sex Determination across Evolution: Connecting the Dots Eric S. Haag*, Alana V. Doty E volutionary developmental biology is motivated by the premise that the differences we see between species are caused by changes that have occurred in the genes heterozygosity at a single locus is required for female development (known as complementary sex determination; [3]), as well as systems involving sex determination via multiple genes with additive effects. that regulate their developmental programs. Beginning in the 1980s, general principles began to emerge about the evolution of development in animals. The identi?cation of the Hox genes in Drosophila melanogaster and the subsequent discovery of their conservation and similar expression in different Metazoans led to the revolutionary realization that many of the mechanisms critical to basic animal development have been conserved across more than 500 million years of evolution. Many other developmental pathways, such as those specifying the heart and the central nervous system, have since been elucidated and promptly subjected to successful comparative analysis. These celebrated discoveries illustrate ways that very different organisms are, at a fundamental level, similar to one another. But not all developmental processes are so conservative; an outstanding example is sex determination. The majority of animal species produce two sexes, and current phylogenies (e.g., [1]) suggest that sexual dimorphism was likely a feature of the last common ancestor of the coelomate bilaterians, a vast clade of animals that excludes only sponges, ctenophores, cnidarians, and acoel ?atworms. However, though critical for development and reproduction, the mechanisms that specify sex determination are among the least-conserved known. Marked variation exists in both the primary sex determination signal and in the downstream genetic pathways that interpret the signal. We are thus presented with ou