title: Sexually dimorphic expression of foxl2 during gametogenesis in scallop Chlamys farreri, conserved with vertebrates.
abstract: FOXL2 is a member of the forkhead box family, a transcription factor essential for the early regulation of ovarian development that is expressed in a sexually dimorphic manner in vertebrates. However, data on this gene in invertebrates are rare. In this study, we cloned a full-length cDNA sequence of foxl2 from the scallop Chlamys farreri, an important commercial mollusk in China. The cDNA sequence of Cf-foxl2 (C. farreri foxl2) has 1,824 bp with an open reading frame of 1,107 bp encoding 369 amino acid residues containing the conserved domain forkhead box. Semiquantitative RT-PCR showed that Cf-foxl2 was expressed mainly in the ovary. Using quantitative real-time PCR, we found that the highest expression was in the ovary of proliferative stage animals, about 62-fold higher than that in the testis and about twofold higher than that in the ovary of growing and mature stages. In situ hybridization revealed that Cf-foxl2 mRNA was located in the cytoplasm of follicle cells and germ cells in the ovary and testis except in the spermatozoa. Our data imply that Cf-foxl2 is expressed in a sexually dimorphic pattern at the RNA level, which is conserved with vertebrates.
authors: Key Laboratory of Marine Genetics and Breeding (Ocean University of China), Ministry of Education, Qingdao 266003, People's Republic of China.
authors: Xiao-Ling
authors: XL
authors: Liu
authors: Zhi-Feng
authors: ZF
authors: Zhang
authors: Ming-Yu
authors: MY
authors: Shao
authors: Jian-Guo
authors: JG
authors: Liu
authors: Faiz
authors: F
authors: Muhammad
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D005260:Female; D051858:Forkhead Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D005718:Gametogenesis; D006801:Humans; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D021141:Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques; D049897:Pectinidae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism; D010802:Phylogeny; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D016415:Sequence Alignment
chemical_list: D051858:Forkhead Transcription Factors