Skip Navigation

Acta Biochimica et Biophysica Sinica 2009 41(4):285-294; doi:10.1093/abbs/gmp012
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Feng, Y.
Right arrow Articles by Gong, Y.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Feng, Y.
Right arrow Articles by Gong, Y.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2009. Published by ABBS Editorial Office in association with Oxford University Press on behalf of the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Isolation and characterization of sexual dimorphism genes expressed in chicken embryonic gonads

Yanping Feng, Xiuli Peng, Shijun Li and Yanzhang Gong*

Key Lab of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China

* Correspondence address. Tel: +86-27-87281396; E-mail: poultry{at}mail.hzau.edu.cn


  Abstract

In chicken, the bipotential embryonic gonad differentiates into either a pair of testes or an ovary, but few genes that underlying the gonadal sex differentiation have been identified and the sex-determination gene is still unknown. To identify more genes involved in chicken sex differentiation, we employed suppression subtractive hybridization to isolate differentially expressed genes between sexes from chicken gonads during a period of E3.5–E6. A total of 152 cDNA clones corresponding to 88 genes (41 from F-M library and 47 from M-F library) were screened using dot-blot analysis. These genes are located mainly on the macro-chromosomes (1–5) with five in the sex chromosomes (one in W and four in Z), encoding four dominating molecular categories belonging to enzyme, DNA association, RNA association, and structural protein. Comparing the obtained cDNA sequences with those in chicken EST database, it showed that cDNAs of 32 genes from F-M library and 16 from M-F library have homologs in two reported embryonic gonad cDNA libraries. Quantitative real-time PCR analysis of eight genes involved in epigenetic and transcription regulation showed significantly different expression between sexes of CDK2AP1, SMARCE1, SAP18, SUDS3, and PQBP1 appeared at the early stage in gonad development (E4). Based on the functional comparison of sexual differentially expressed genes, the roles of some putatively important genes including ATP5A1W, CDK2AP1, mitochondrial transcripts, etc. have been analyzed. In conclusion, characterization of isolated genes would provide valuable clues to identify potential candidates involved in genetic mechanisms of chicken sex differentiation and gonad development.

Keywords    chicken; gonad; suppression subtractive hybridization; sex differentiation

Received: October 19, 2008; Accepted: February 16, 2009
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.