Gonadal dimorphism explained as a dosage effect of a locus on the sex chromosomes, the gonad-differentiation locus (GDL).
In human somatic cells bearing two X chromosomes, one X is genetically inactivated throughout most of its length, whereas in cells with one X and one Y both sex chromosomes are active (with the exception of the constitutive heterochromatin of the Y that is inert). The vast base of information concerning normal and abnormal human sexual development that has accumulated since the advent of human cytogenetics 3 decades ago can be integrated by the following hypothesis: Homologous gonad-differentiation loci (GDLs) exist on the X and Y. The GDLs are strictly sex-linked; that is, normally they do not recombine during spermatogenesis, so that considerable divergence in DNA sequence doubtless has occurred between the locus on the X and the locus on the Y. The abundance of their evolutionarily conserved product--a substance still to be identified--determines the path of differentiation that the indifferent gonadal anlage of the early embryo will take: if only one GDL is transcribed, the case when two X chromosomes are present, ovary will develop; if two GDLs are transcribed, the case when a Y is present along with an X, testis will develop. By implication, facultative X inactivation is an integral and essential component of the system adopted in mammalian evolution for accomplishing gonadal--viz., sexual--dimorphism.
German
J
J
New York Blood Center, NY 10021.
D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D004303:Dosage Compensation, Genetic; D005260:Female; D006059:Gonadal Dysgenesis / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010641:Phenotype; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012733:Sex Differentiation; D014960:X Chromosome; D014998:Y Chromosome