At the initial stages of sex differentiation (7.5 and 8.5 days of incubation), chick embryo gonads were treated directly with testosterone or estradiol-17 beta in organ cultures. Chemically-defined media containing cholesterol as a steroid precursor were used. The differentiation of gonads in the 10 to 12-day controls, cultured in media containing no hormones, was close to that of gonads of equ...

In recent years, jellyfish blooms have attracted considerable scientific interest for their potential impacts on human activities and ecosystem functioning, with much attention paid to jellyfish as predators and to gelatinous biomass as a carbon sink. Other than qualitative data and observations, few studies have quantified direct predation of fish on jellyfish to clarify whether they may repre...

Alternative transmission strategies are common in many parasitic organisms, often representing discrete phenotypes adopted in response to external cues. The facultative truncation of the normal 3-host life-cycle to a 2-host cycle in many trematodes provides an example: some individuals mature precociously, via progenesis, in their intermediate host and produce eggs without the need to reach a d...

The study was designed to localize P450 17alpha-hydroxylase/c17-20 lyase (P450c17) in the ovaries of pregnant pigs and fetal gonads. Immunoexpression of P450c17 was investigated in the porcine ovaries (follicles and corpora lutea; CL) collected on days 10, 18, 32, 50, 70 and 90 post coitum (p.c.), and fetal gonads (testes and ovaries) on days 50, 70 and 90 p.c. The presence of P450c17 in ovaria...

To examine the effects of dibutyl phthalate (DBP) on gonadal sex differentiation, genetically male tadpoles of Rana rugosa were exposed to dilute solutions of DBP at concentrations of 0.1, 1, or 10 microM during days 19-23 after fertilization, which is the critical period of gonadal sex differentiation in R. rugosa. Tadpoles were necropsied on day 40. The genetically male tadpoles were produced...

It has been shown previously that acidic K18 and K19 keratins display a differential immunohistochemical pattern of expression during sexual differentiation of the gonads in the rat (Fridmacher et al. (1992) Development 115, 503-517). The present results indicate that K18 and K19 gene expression is regulated at the transcriptional level. The analysis was performed by Northern Blot, reverse tran...

G O N A D A L inversion produced by sex hormones has been studied by many authors trying to understand sex differentiation and its hormonal control. The work of Dantchakoff (1935), Wolff & Ginglinger (1935) and Willier, Gallagher & Koch (1935), who studied sex inversion in genetically male chick gonads caused by the action of estrogens, as well as work done since then on birds and other vertebr...

Development of female gonads in the chicken is asymmetric. This asymmetry affects gene expression, morphology, and germ cell development; consequently only the left ovary develops into a functional organ, whereas the right ovary remains vestigial. In males, on the other hand, both gonads develop into functional testes. Here, we revisited the development of asymmetric traits in female (and male)...

A better understanding of vertebrate sexual differentiation could be provided by a study of models in which genetic sex determination (GSD) of gonads can be reversed by temperature. In the newt Pleurodeles waltl, a P450 aromatase cDNA was isolated from adult gonads, and the nucleotide or deduced amino acid sequences showed a high level of identity with various vertebrate species. In adults, aro...

Testicular teratomas can be experimentally induced in some strains of mice by grafting 12.5-day male genital ridges to the testes of adults. The grafts develop into testes and most of them have teratomas. The cells of 12.5-day foetal gonads were dissociated and the germ cells and somatic cells were separated. When germ cells were reaggregated with somatic cells and implanted in adult testes, th...