title: Of sex and determination: marking 25 years of Randy, the sex-reversed mouse.
abstract: On Thursday 9 May 1991, the world awoke to front-page news of a breakthrough in biological research. From Washington to Wollongong, newspapers, radio and TV were abuzz with the story of a transgenic mouse in London called Randy. Why was this mouse so special? The mouse in question was a chromosomal female (XX) made male by the presence of a transgene containing the Y chromosome gene Sry This sex-reversal provided clear experimental proof that Sry was the elusive mammalian sex-determining gene. Twenty-five years on, we reflect on what this discovery meant for our understanding of how males and females arise and what remains to be understood.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia p.koopman@imb.uq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6939-0914
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Koopman
authors.affiliation: Murdoch Children's Research Institute and Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria 3052, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sinclair
authors.affiliation: The Francis Crick Institute, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA, UK.
authors.forename: Robin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lovell-Badge
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D019849:Sex Determination Processes; D051876:Sex-Determining Region Y Protein / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D051876:Sex-Determining Region Y Protein
keywords: Sex determination; Sry; Testis; Transgenic mouse