Bachtrog, D;
Mank, JE;
Peichel, CL;
Kirkpatrick, M;
Otto, SP;
Ashman, TL;
Hahn, MW;
... Tree of Sex Consortium, The; + view all
(2014)
Sex determination: why so many ways of doing it?
PLOS Biology
, 12
(7)
, Article e1001899. 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001899.
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2014 PLoS Biol SexDet.pdf Available under License : See the attached licence file. Download (1MB) |
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Other (TIFF Figure 1. Sex chromosome differentiation.)
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Other (TIFF Figure 2. Evolutionary pathways from hermaphroditism to separate sexes.)
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Other (TIFF Figure 3. Diversity of sex determination systems for representative plant and animal clades.)
journal.pbio.1001899.g003.tif Download (978kB) |
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Other (TIFF Table 1. Known master sex-determining genes in vertebrates and insects, and their paralogs)
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Other (TIFF Figure 4. Schematic overview of some sex determination (SD) mechanisms.)
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Other (TIFF Figure 5. Transitions versus differentiation of sex chromosomes.)
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Abstract
Sexual reproduction is an ancient feature of life on earth, and the familiar X and Y chromosomes in humans and other model species have led to the impression that sex determination mechanisms are old and conserved. In fact, males and females are determined by diverse mechanisms that evolve rapidly in many taxa. Yet this diversity in primary sex-determining signals is coupled with conserved molecular pathways that trigger male or female development. Conflicting selection on different parts of the genome and on the two sexes may drive many of these transitions, but few systems with rapid turnover of sex determination mechanisms have been rigorously studied. Here we survey our current understanding of how and why sex determination evolves in animals and plants and identify important gaps in our knowledge that present exciting research opportunities to characterize the evolutionary forces and molecular pathways underlying the evolution of sex determination.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Sex determination: why so many ways of doing it? |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001899 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001899 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Sexual reproduction is an ancient feature of life on earth, and the familiar X and Y chromosomes in humans and other model species have led to the impression that sex determination mechanisms are old and conserved. In fact, males and females are determined by diverse mechanisms that evolve rapidly in many taxa. Yet this diversity in primary sex-determining signals is coupled with conserved molecular pathways that trigger male or female development. Conflicting selection on different parts of the genome and on the two sexes may drive many of these transitions, but few systems with rapid turnover of sex determination mechanisms have been rigorously studied. Here we survey our current understanding of how and why sex determination evolves in animals and plants and identify important gaps in our knowledge that present exciting research opportunities to characterize the evolutionary forces and molecular pathways underlying the evolution of sex determination. PMCID: PMC4077654 |
| Keywords: | © 2014 Bachtrog et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1434205 |
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