Encoding Phosphatidylinositol Transfer Protein Is Involved in Female Differentiation of Chinese Tongue Sole, .

Phosphatidylinositol transfer protein (pitp) plays an important role in phospholipid transfer in animals. A pitp variant () in Chinese tongue sole was identified by transcriptomic analysis for its female-biased expression. The coding sequence of was 816 bp, encoding a 371-amino-acid protein. showed female-biased expression and was relatively high in brain, muscle, and ovary tissues. In different developmental stages of the ovary, could be detected from 40 days until 3 years post hatching, and the highest expression was observed at 90 days. hybridization revealed that was predominantly localized in early-stage oocytes (I-III stages). After siRNA-mediated knockdown of in an ovarian cell line, the expression of was reduced, while that of and was significantly increased. Our findings suggest that might be involved in female differentiation and early oogenesis.