Ontogeny of the oestrogen receptors ESR1 and ESR2 during gonadal development in the tammar wallaby, Macropus eugenii

Abstract

Oestrogen has wide ranging effects in development mediated mainly via the two oestrogen receptors, α (ESR1, also known as ERα) and β(ESR2, also known as ERβ). Oestrogen is the key factor that directs the indifferent gonad to become an ovary in many non-mammalian vertebrates. Oestrogen is not required for early ovarian differentiation in mammals but can disrupt normal testicular development in eutherians. Surprisingly, exogenous oestrogen can cause sex reversal of an XY gonad in two marsupials, the North American opossum and the tammarwallaby. To understand the mechanism by which oestrogen induces sex reversal, we characterised the genes for ESR1 and ESR2 and examined their expression during ..