Institute of Tropical Medicine, School of Public Health, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510515, China.
Department of Biochemistry and the Fralin Life Sciences Institute, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA.
Nat Commun. 2023 Apr 21;14(1):2292. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-37983-y.
The initial signals governing sex determination vary widely among insects. Here we show that Armigeres subalbatus M factor (AsuMf), a male-specific duplication of an autosomal gene of the Drosophila behaviour/human splicing (DBHS) gene family, is the potential primary signal for sex determination in the human filariasis vector mosquito, Ar. subalbatus. Our results show that AsuMf satisfies two fundamental requirements of an M factor: male-specific expression and early embryonic expression. Ablations of AsuMf result in a shift from male- to female-specific splicing of doublesex and fruitless, leading to feminization of males both in morphology and general transcription profile. These data support the conclusion that AsuMf is essential for male development in Ar. subalbatus and reveal a male-determining factor that is derived from duplication and subsequent neofunctionalization of a member of the conserved DBHS family.
初始信号决定性别在昆虫中差异很大。在这里，我们表明 Armigeres subalbatus M 因子（AsuMf），是果蝇行为/人类剪接（DBHS）基因家族常染色体基因的一个雄性特异性重复，是人类丝虫病传播媒介蚊子，Ar. subalbatus 性别决定的潜在主要信号。我们的结果表明，AsuMf 满足 M 因子的两个基本要求：雄性特异性表达和早期胚胎表达。AsuMf 的缺失导致 doublesex 和 fruitless 的雄性特异性剪接发生转变，导致雄性在形态和整体转录谱上的雌性化。这些数据支持 AsuMf 对 Ar. subalbatus 雄性发育至关重要的结论，并揭示了一个雄性决定因素，该因素来源于保守的 DBHS 家族成员的重复和随后的新功能化。
