State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, The Innovation Academy of Seed Design, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, Wuhan, 430072, China.
College of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
Mar Biotechnol (NY). 2022 Apr;24(2):320-334. doi: 10.1007/s10126-022-10106-2. Epub 2022 Mar 18.
Primordial germ cells (PGCs) play an important role in sexual fate determination and gonadal development in gonochoristic fish, such as zebrafish and medaka. However, little is known about the function of PGCs in hermaphroditic fish. Rice field eel (Monopterus albus), a protogynous hermaphroditic fish, is an economically valuable aquaculture species. We eliminated PGCs in rice field eels during embryogenesis via morpholino-mediated knockdown dead end (dnd). The PGCs-depleted gonads developed into testis-like structures with Sertoli cells and Leydig cells. The gene expression pattern of 15-month-old PGCs-depleted gonads showed that male-biased genes, dmrt1, sox9a, gsdf, and amh, were significantly higher than that of the WT, whereas female-biased genes, foxl2 and cyp19a1a, were significantly decreased. These results indicate that PGCs are essential for ovarian differentiation in rice field eel, and PGCs-depleted gonads develop into sterile males without undergoing the female and intersex stages. Our study is the first to identify the role of PGCs in sex differentiation in rice field eel, a protogynous hermaphrodite teleost. And it is of great significance in rice field eel for discovering the underlying mechanism of sex differentiation and establishing sex control technology.
原始生殖细胞（PGCs）在雌雄异体鱼类（如斑马鱼和青鳉）的性命运决定和性腺发育中发挥重要作用。然而，对于雌雄同体鱼类的 PGCs 功能知之甚少。稻田鳗（Monopterus albus）是一种雌核发育的雌雄同体鱼类，是一种具有经济价值的水产养殖物种。我们通过使用 morpholino 介导的敲低方法（dead end，dnd）在胚胎发生期间消除了稻田鳗的 PGCs。PGCs 耗尽的性腺发育成具有支持细胞和间质细胞的睾丸样结构。15 个月大的 PGCs 耗尽性腺的基因表达模式表明，雄性偏性基因 dmrt1、sox9a、gsdf 和 amh 的表达显著高于 WT，而雌性偏性基因 foxl2 和 cyp19a1a 的表达则显著降低。这些结果表明，PGCs 对于稻田鳗的卵巢分化是必需的，PGCs 耗尽的性腺发育成不育的雄性，而不会经历雌性和间性阶段。我们的研究首次确定了 PGCs 在稻田鳗性分化中的作用，这是一种雌核发育的硬骨鱼类。这对于发现性分化的潜在机制和建立性别控制技术具有重要意义。
