title: Molecular cloning and expression of Sox17 in gonads during sex reversal in the rice field eel, a teleost fish with a characteristic of natural sex transformation.
abstract: The Sox is a large family of genes which encode transcription factors with high-mobility-group DNA binding domain related to the SRY, with diverse roles in development, and a few of them are involved in sex determination and differentiation. We report here the identification of Sox17 gene of the rice field eel, a teleost fish with a characteristic of natural sex transformation. This gene, located on chromosome 5, consists of two exons which encode a 399-amino acid protein with a conserved HMG box. Phylogenetic analysis shows that the rice field eel Sox17 fits within the Sox17 clade of vertebrates. The rice field eel Sox17 was dominantly expressed in gonads of male, female, and intersex, besides in brain and spleen. Gene expression analysis by in situ hybridization showed its expression in testis, ovary, and ovotestis, and specifically in the gonadal lamellae of ovary, ovotestis, and testis and developing spermatogenic cells of testis, suggesting that they have potentially important roles in gonadal differentiation during sex reversal in this species.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics and Center for Developmental Biology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Hanhua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Laixin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.forename: Yiqing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Rongjia
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D019976:Cloning, Organism; D017931:DNA Primers; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D004524:Eels; D005260:Female; D057850:Hermaphroditic Organisms; D006609:High Mobility Group Proteins; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011506:Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D055760:SOXF Transcription Factors; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D019849:Sex Determination Processes; D014157:Transcription Factors
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D006609:High Mobility Group Proteins; D011506:Proteins; C109188:SOX17 protein, human; D055760:SOXF Transcription Factors; D014157:Transcription Factors