Sufficient Numbers of Early Germ Cells Are Essential for Female Sex Development in Zebrafish

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117824
• Publication Date: 2015-02-13T19:02:22Z
• Authors: Xiangyan Dai; Xia Jin; Xiaowen Chen; Jiangyan He; Zhan Yin
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; Science; Recombinant Fusion Proteins; Sexual Development; Q; R; Gene Expression; Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; Zebrafish Proteins; Animals, Genetically Modified; 03 medical and health sciences; Germ Cells; Medicine; Animals; Female; Transgenes; Promoter Regions, Genetic; Zebrafish; Research Article

The sex determination for zebrafish is controlled by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. in has been suggested to rely on mechanism that affected germ cell-derived signals. To begin our current study, simplified efficient cell-specific promoter the dead end (dnd) gene was identified. Utilizing metrodinazole (MTZ)/ bacterial nitroreductase (NTR) system inducible cell ablation, several stable Tg (dnd:NTR-EGFP-3'UTR) (dnd:NTR-EGFP+3'UTR) lines were then generated with identified promoter. A thorough comparison expression patterns tissue distributions endogenous dnd ntr-egfp transcripts vivo revealed 2032-bp can recapitulate faithfully transgenic zebrafish. correlation between levels signals requirement maintaining female fate also explored different durations MTZ treatments. Our results decreasing ratios presented treated group are fairly associated reducing early After juvenile fish 5 mM 20 days, all MTZ-treated exclusively developed into males subfertilities. Taken together, here promoter, provide clear evidence indicating it not presence but sufficiency derived from cells essential development model provides unique control studies.