Conservation of the global sex determination gene tra-1 in distantly related nematodes.

ABSTRACT: Sex determination has long intrigued evolutionists, geneticists, and developmental biologists in a similar way. Substantial evidence indicates that sex determination evolves rapidly and, therefore, can be used to study how molecular patterning processes evolve. In Caenorhabditis elegans, sex determination relies on a signaling pathway that involves a cascade of negatively acting factors, finally triggering the GLI-family zinc-finger transcription factor TRA-1. We have started to investigate sex determination in the nematode satellite species Pristionchus pacificus that is separated from C. elegans for 200-300 million years. In P. pacificus, animals with two X chromosomes develop as hermaphrodites, whereas XO animals develop as males. We used an unbiased forward genetic approach and isolate

SUBMITTER: Pires-daSilva A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC415644 | biostudies-literature | 2004 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature