title: Females battle to suppress their inner male.
abstract: Conventional wisdom holds that the ovary and testis are terminally differentiated organs in adult mammals. However, Uhlenhaut et al. (2009) now report that deletion of a single gene, Foxl2, is sufficient to induce transdifferentiation of ovary into testis in adult mice, suggesting that testicular development is actively repressed throughout the life of females.
authors.affiliation: Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, Victoria 3052, Australia. andrew.sinclair@mcri.edu.au
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sinclair
authors.forename: Craig
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D054338:Cell Transdifferentiation; D005260:Female; D000074842:Forkhead Box Protein L2; D051858:Forkhead Transcription Factors / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D010053:Ovary / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D013737:Testis / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D000074842:Forkhead Box Protein L2; D051858:Forkhead Transcription Factors; C498893:Foxl2 protein, mouse