A research group at Nagoya University has succeeded in clarifying the molecular pathway by which cells produce eggs in a study using medaka fish.
Germ cells are known to have the ability to be both sperm and egg.Males make sperms and females make eggs, so germ cells determine whether they become sperms or eggs depending on the sex of the body.
So far, this research group has identified foxl3, a "sex switch gene" (a gene that determines egg formation) in female medaka fish.However, it was not yet known how the "mechanism that decides to become an egg" and the "mechanism that produces an egg" are connected.
In this study, it was revealed that the action of two working factors (rec3a and fbxo2) under foxl8 induces germ cell differentiation into eggs.In order for a cell to become an egg, it must have the characteristics of an egg, such as enlarging the cell and halving the gene amount of a normal cell, but fbxo47 and rec47a create the characteristics of each of these eggs. It is said that it is.
It was also found that sperm can be produced by breaking the mechanism for producing eggs.This means that in order to make an egg, it is necessary to "continue to suppress sperm formation."On the flip side, it is shown that germ cells have the "potential to become sperm" that they can become sperm in some situations even if they try to become eggs, and the sexual flexibility of germ cells is high. I can see it.
This study found the existence of a gene that works after the female germ cells decide to become an egg, and for the first time, the sex switch and the mechanism for making an egg are linked at the molecular level.If we can get closer to the full elucidation of the pathways that form eggs and sperm, we can expect to increase the breeding efficiency of livestock and farmed fish in the livestock and fisheries industries and contribute to the improvement of reproductive medical technology.
