Sex determination in honeybees: two separate mechanisms induce and maintain the female pathway.

Organisms have evolved a bewildering diversity of mechanisms to generate the two sexes. The honeybee (Apis mellifera) employs an interesting system in which sex is determined by heterozygosity at a single locus (the Sex Determination Locus) harbouring the complementary sex determiner (csd) gene. Bee...

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Autores principales:	Tanja Gempe, Martin Hasselmann, Morten Schiøtt, Gerd Hause, Marianne Otte, Martin Beye
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2009
Materias:	Biology (General) QH301-705.5
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/77bd738c4e774ed49c29eca655e8d96b
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:77bd738c4e774ed49c29eca655e8d96b2021-11-25T05:34:32ZSex determination in honeybees: two separate mechanisms induce and maintain the female pathway.1544-91731545-788510.1371/journal.pbio.1000222https://doaj.org/article/77bd738c4e774ed49c29eca655e8d96b2009-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/19841734/pdf/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1544-9173https://doaj.org/toc/1545-7885Organisms have evolved a bewildering diversity of mechanisms to generate the two sexes. The honeybee (Apis mellifera) employs an interesting system in which sex is determined by heterozygosity at a single locus (the Sex Determination Locus) harbouring the complementary sex determiner (csd) gene. Bees heterozygous at Sex Determination Locus are females, whereas bees homozygous or hemizygous are males. Little is known, however, about the regulation that links sex determination to sexual differentiation. To investigate the control of sexual development in honeybees, we analyzed the functions and the regulatory interactions of genes involved in the sex determination pathway. We show that heterozygous csd is only required to induce the female pathway, while the feminizer (fem) gene maintains this decision throughout development. By RNAi induced knockdown we show that the fem gene is essential for entire female development and that the csd gene exclusively processes the heterozygous state. Fem activity is also required to maintain the female determined pathway throughout development, which we show by mosaic structures in fem-repressed intersexuals. We use expression of Fem protein in males to demonstrate that the female maintenance mechanism is controlled by a positive feedback splicing loop in which Fem proteins mediate their own synthesis by directing female fem mRNA splicing. The csd gene is only necessary to induce this positive feedback loop in early embryogenesis by directing splicing of fem mRNAs. Finally, fem also controls the splicing of Am-doublesex transcripts encoding conserved male- and female-specific transcription factors involved in sexual differentiation. Our findings reveal how the sex determination process is realized in honeybees differing from Drosophila melanogaster.Tanja GempeMartin HasselmannMorten SchiøttGerd HauseMarianne OtteMartin BeyePublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleBiology (General)QH301-705.5ENPLoS Biology, Vol 7, Iss 10, p e1000222 (2009)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Biology (General) QH301-705.5
spellingShingle	Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Tanja Gempe Martin Hasselmann Morten Schiøtt Gerd Hause Marianne Otte Martin Beye Sex determination in honeybees: two separate mechanisms induce and maintain the female pathway.
description	Organisms have evolved a bewildering diversity of mechanisms to generate the two sexes. The honeybee (Apis mellifera) employs an interesting system in which sex is determined by heterozygosity at a single locus (the Sex Determination Locus) harbouring the complementary sex determiner (csd) gene. Bees heterozygous at Sex Determination Locus are females, whereas bees homozygous or hemizygous are males. Little is known, however, about the regulation that links sex determination to sexual differentiation. To investigate the control of sexual development in honeybees, we analyzed the functions and the regulatory interactions of genes involved in the sex determination pathway. We show that heterozygous csd is only required to induce the female pathway, while the feminizer (fem) gene maintains this decision throughout development. By RNAi induced knockdown we show that the fem gene is essential for entire female development and that the csd gene exclusively processes the heterozygous state. Fem activity is also required to maintain the female determined pathway throughout development, which we show by mosaic structures in fem-repressed intersexuals. We use expression of Fem protein in males to demonstrate that the female maintenance mechanism is controlled by a positive feedback splicing loop in which Fem proteins mediate their own synthesis by directing female fem mRNA splicing. The csd gene is only necessary to induce this positive feedback loop in early embryogenesis by directing splicing of fem mRNAs. Finally, fem also controls the splicing of Am-doublesex transcripts encoding conserved male- and female-specific transcription factors involved in sexual differentiation. Our findings reveal how the sex determination process is realized in honeybees differing from Drosophila melanogaster.
format	article
author	Tanja Gempe Martin Hasselmann Morten Schiøtt Gerd Hause Marianne Otte Martin Beye
author_facet	Tanja Gempe Martin Hasselmann Morten Schiøtt Gerd Hause Marianne Otte Martin Beye
author_sort	Tanja Gempe
title	Sex determination in honeybees: two separate mechanisms induce and maintain the female pathway.
title_short	Sex determination in honeybees: two separate mechanisms induce and maintain the female pathway.
title_full	Sex determination in honeybees: two separate mechanisms induce and maintain the female pathway.
title_fullStr	Sex determination in honeybees: two separate mechanisms induce and maintain the female pathway.
title_full_unstemmed	Sex determination in honeybees: two separate mechanisms induce and maintain the female pathway.
title_sort	sex determination in honeybees: two separate mechanisms induce and maintain the female pathway.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2009
url	https://doaj.org/article/77bd738c4e774ed49c29eca655e8d96b
work_keys_str_mv	AT tanjagempe sexdeterminationinhoneybeestwoseparatemechanismsinduceandmaintainthefemalepathway AT martinhasselmann sexdeterminationinhoneybeestwoseparatemechanismsinduceandmaintainthefemalepathway AT mortenschiøtt sexdeterminationinhoneybeestwoseparatemechanismsinduceandmaintainthefemalepathway AT gerdhause sexdeterminationinhoneybeestwoseparatemechanismsinduceandmaintainthefemalepathway AT marianneotte sexdeterminationinhoneybeestwoseparatemechanismsinduceandmaintainthefemalepathway AT martinbeye sexdeterminationinhoneybeestwoseparatemechanismsinduceandmaintainthefemalepathway
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Sex determination in honeybees: two separate mechanisms induce and maintain the female pathway.

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