Journal article
Antagonism of the testis- and ovary-determining pathways during ovotestis development in mice
D Wilhelm, LL Washburn, V Truong, M Fellous, EM Eicher, P Koopman
Mechanisms of Development | Published : 2009
Abstract
Ovotestis development in B6-XYPOS mice provides a rare opportunity to study the interaction of the testis- and ovary-determining pathways in the same tissue. We studied expression of several markers of mouse fetal testis (SRY, SOX9) or ovary (FOXL2, Rspo1) development in B6-XYPOS ovotestes by immunofluorescence, using normal testes and ovaries as controls. In ovotestes, SOX9 was expressed only in the central region where SRY is expressed earliest, resulting in testis cord formation. Surprisingly, FOXL2-expressing cells also were found in this region, but individual cells expressed either FOXL2 or SOX9, not both. At the poles, even though SOX9 was not up-regulated, SRY expression was down-reg..
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Awarded by National Institute of General Medical Sciences
Funding Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Lisa Somes for conducting PCR assays for deter-mining the presence of the Y chromosome, Dr. Ken-Ichirou Morohashi (Okazaki, NIBB, Japan) for the SF1 antibody and the histology facility of The Jackson Laboratory for help with processing the samples. This work was supported by a travel grant from the Network in Genes and Environment in Development (NGED) and research grants from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia to PK and the National Institutes of Health (USA) to DW (HD049431) and EE (GM20919 and RRO1183). PK is a Federation Fellow of the ARC. Confocal microscopy was performed at the Australian Cancer Research Foundation/institute for Molecular Bioscience Dynamic Imaging Facility for Cancer Biology.