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Science 1 March 1991:
Vol. 251. no. 4997, pp. 1071 - 1074
DOI: 10.1126/science.1900130
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Articles

Science, Vol 251, Issue 4997, 1071-1074
Copyright © 1991 by American Association for the Advancement of Science

articles

Molecular nature of the Drosophila sex determination signal and its link to neurogenesis

JW Erickson and TW Cline

Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley 94720.

In 1921 it was discovered that the sexual fate of Drosophila is determined by the ratio of X chromosomes to sets of autosomes. Only recently has it been found that the X chromosome to autosome (X:A) ratio is communicated in part by the dose of sisterless-b (sis-b), an X-linked genetic element located within the achaete-scute complex of genes involved in neurogenesis. In this report, the molecular nature of the primary sex determination signal and its relation to these proneural genes was determined by analysis of sis-b+ germline transformants. The sis-b+ function is confered by protein T4, a member of the helix-loop-helix family of transcription factors. Although T4 is shared by sis-b and scute-alpha, the regulatory regions of sis-b, which control T4 expression in sex determination, are both separable from and simpler than those of scute-alpha, which control T4 expression in neurogenesis. Dose-sensitive cooperative interactions in the assembly or binding of sis-dependent transcription factors may directly determine the activity of the female-specific promoter of Sex-lethal, the master regulator of sexual development. In this model there is no need to invoke the existence of analogous autosomal negative regulators of Sex-lethal.


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The dual role of hermaphrodite in the Drosophila sex determination regulatory hierarchy.
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Sex determination and dosage compensation: lessons from flies and worms.
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Function of Drosophila ovo+ in germ-line sex determination depends on X-chromosome number.
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A bZIP protein, sisterless-a, collaborates with bHLH transcription factors early in Drosophila development to determine sex..
J W Erickson and T W Cline (1993)
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Sex determination in the germ line of Drosophila melanogaster: activation of the gene Sex-lethal.
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achaete-scute feminizing activities and Drosophila sex determination.
S. Parkhurst, H. Lipshitz, and D Ish-Horowicz (1993)
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Sex determination in Drosophila: sis-b, a major numerator element of the X:A ratio in the soma, does not contribute to the X:A ratio in the germ line.
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Sex-specific transcriptional regulation by the male and female doublesex proteins of Drosophila..
K T Coschigano and P C Wensink (1993)
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Tissue-specific RNA splicing generates an ankyrin-like domain that affects the dimerization and DNA-binding properties of a bHLH protein..
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The dorsal gradient morphogen regulates stripes of rhomboid expression in the presumptive neuroectoderm of the Drosophila embryo..
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The Drosophila segmentation gene runt acts as a position-specific numerator element necessary for the uniform expression of the sex-determining gene Sex-lethal..
J B Duffy and J P Gergen (1991)
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