The Potential Role of Gonadotropic Hormones and Their Receptors in Sex Differentiation of Nile Tilapia, .

Nile tilapia, as an ideal model for studying sex differentiation, is a popular farmed fish worldwide with a stable XX/XY sex-determination system. In tilapia, ovarian differentiation is triggered by estradiol-17β (E2) production in undifferentiated gonads. In a previous study, we suggested that follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) signaling might be involved in ovarian differentiation in Nile tilapia. In this study, we further investigated the role of FSH signaling in ovarian differentiation via aromatase expression, which converts testosterone to E2. Masculinization of XX fry by aromatase inhibitor or 17α-methyltestosterone leads to suppression of expression. Feminization of XY fry by E2 treatment increased expression from 15 days after hatching, when E2 treatment was terminated. XX tilapia developed ovaries harboring aromatase expression if and were double knockdowns by morpholino-oligo injections. Finally, the transcriptional activity in the upstream region of the aromatase gene () was further increased by FSH stimulation when HEK293T cells were co-transfected with and /. Collectively, this study suggests that the role of FSH signaling is not critical in tilapia ovarian differentiation; however, FSH signaling may have a compensatory role in ovarian differentiation by increasing transcription in cooperation with and / in Nile tilapia.