Hubrecht Institute-KNAW & University Medical Center Utrecht, Uppsalalaan 8, 3584 CT Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Trends Genet. 2011 Apr;27(4):132-40. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2011.01.004. Epub 2011 Feb 18.
Males and females display differences in physiology, behaviour and susceptibility to many diseases. Genome-wide transcription profiling studies have uncovered large-scale sex differences in autosomal gene expression in somatic tissues that are thought to underlie such 'sexual dimorphisms'. Because males and females differ genetically mainly in their sex chromosome complement, most sex differences can be traced back to the X and Y chromosomes. Although sex hormones are usually considered the main architects of sexual dimorphisms, recent studies have demonstrated that sex chromosomes can also induce sex differences in somatic gene expression in the absence of hormonal differences. The recent discovery of epigenetic sex differences that are not hormone-induced brings us closer to understanding differences in autosomal gene expression. In this review, we discuss the insights gained from these findings and the mechanisms by which X and Y chromosomes might induce epigenetic sex differences.
男性和女性在生理、行为和对许多疾病的易感性方面存在差异。全基因组转录谱研究揭示了常染色体基因在体组织中的大规模性别表达差异，这些差异被认为是导致这种“性别二态性”的基础。由于男性和女性在性染色体组成上主要存在差异，因此大多数性别差异可以追溯到 X 和 Y 染色体。尽管性激素通常被认为是性别二态性的主要决定因素，但最近的研究表明，在没有激素差异的情况下，性染色体也可以诱导体基因表达的性别差异。最近发现的非激素诱导的表观遗传性别差异使我们更接近于理解常染色体基因表达的差异。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了这些发现带来的启示，以及 X 和 Y 染色体诱导表观遗传性别差异的机制。
