Activation of stress response axis as a key process in environment-induced sex plasticity in fish.

Activation of stress response axis as a key process in environment-induced sex plasticity in fish. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2020 May 04;: Authors: Hattori RS, Castañeda-Cortés DC, Arias Padilla LF, Strobl-Mazzulla PH, Fernandino JI Abstract The determination of sex is an important hallmark in the life cycle of organisms, in which the fate of gonads and then the individual sex are defined. In gonochoristic teleost fish, this process is characterized by a high plasticity, considering that in spite of genotypic sex many environmental factors can cause shifts from one to another molecular pathway, resulting in organisms with mismatching genotypic and phenotypic sexes. Interestingly, in most instances, both female-to-male or male-to-female sex-reversed individuals develop functional gonads with normal gametogenesis and respective progenies with full viability. The study of these mechanisms is being spread to other non-model species or to those inhabiting more extreme environmental conditions. Although water temperature is an important mechanism involved in sex determination, there are other environmental stressors affected by the climate change which are also implicated in stress response-induced masculinization in fish. In this regard, the brain has emerged as the transducer of the environment input that can influence the gonadal fate. Furthermore, the evaluation of other environmental stressors or their synergic effect on sex determination ...
Source: Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences : CMLS - Category: Cytology Authors: Tags: Cell Mol Life Sci Source Type: research