Kocher Thomas D, Meisel Richard P, Gamble Tony, Behrens Kristen A, Gammerdinger William J
Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA.
Trends Genet. 2024 Dec;40(12):1001-1017. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2024.10.003. Epub 2024 Nov 5.
The process of sexual development in animals is modulated by a variety of mechanisms. Some species respond to environmental cues, while, in others, sex determination is thought to be controlled by a single 'master regulator' gene. However, many animals respond to a combination of environmental cues (e.g., temperature) and genetic factors (e.g., sex chromosomes). Even among species in which genetic factors predominate, there is a continuum between monofactorial and polygenic systems. The perception that polygenic systems are rare may result from experiments that lack the statistical power to detect multiple loci. Intellectual biases against the existence of polygenic sex determination (PSD) may further arise from misconceptions about the regulation of developmental processes and a misreading of theoretical results on the stability of polygenic systems of sex determination.
动物的性发育过程受到多种机制的调节。一些物种对环境线索做出反应,而在其他物种中,性别决定被认为由单个“主调控”基因控制。然而,许多动物对环境线索(如温度)和遗传因素(如性染色体)的组合做出反应。即使在遗传因素占主导的物种中,单因素和多基因系统之间也存在连续体。认为多基因系统罕见的看法可能源于缺乏检测多个基因座统计能力的实验。对多基因性别决定(PSD)存在的智力偏见可能进一步源于对发育过程调节的误解以及对性别决定多基因系统稳定性理论结果的误读。