Sex differentiation in bilaterally allophenic animals produced by cloning of two bipartite male/female chimaeras of Lineus sanguineus.
Two bipartite chimaeras were constructed in Lineus sanguineus by grafting the lateral halves from a phenotypically dark-brown male onto the anatomically complementary halves from a phenotypically light-brown female. Regeneration of a large number of pieces transected from these two bilaterally allogeneic chimaeras produced two clones of bilaterally allophenic nemertines (male/female and female/male). Sex differentiation in the cloned worms started with a transitory stage of gonad developmental autonomy, termed the primary gynandromorphous state; at this stage there were young testes in the originally male lateral halves and juvenile ovaries in the originally female ones, the only abnormality then was that the ovarian development was more advanced than the testicular development relative to those in male and female controls. Then, unilateral sex reversal occurred, with feminization of the testes, i.e. oogenesis took the place of spermatogenesis in the many male gonads located in either the right or the left side of allophenic worms according to the symmetry patterns of the two clones. Finally, when the gonads reached maturity, both sides allophenic L. sanguineus contained only ovaries with ripe oocytes. The complete feminization of these allophenic worms and the previously observed masculinization of 'heterosexual' chimaeras in L. ruber suggest that a diffusible factor controls gonadal differentiation in worms of the prevailing sex, which is the female sex in L. sanguineus and the male sex in L. ruber.
D002678:Chimera; D002999:Clone Cells; D006066:Gonads / Q000254:growth & development; D006376:Helminths / Q000196:embryology* / Q000235:genetics; D012733:Sex Differentiation; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous