Random sex determination: when developmental noise tips the sex balance.

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_95F6DD2409CF
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Publication sub-type
Review (review): journal as complete as possible of one specific subject, written based on exhaustive analyses from published work.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Random sex determination: when developmental noise tips the sex balance.
Journal
BioEssays
Author(s)
Perrin N.
ISSN
1521-1878 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
0265-9247
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2016
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
38
Number
12
Pages
1218-1226
Language
english
Abstract
Sex-determining factors are usually assumed to be either genetic or environmental. The present paper aims at drawing attention to the potential contribution of developmental noise, an important but often-neglected component of phenotypic variance. Mutual inhibitions between male and female pathways make sex a bistable equilibrium, such that random fluctuations in the expression of genes at the top of the cascade are sufficient to drive individual development toward one or the other stable state. Evolutionary modeling shows that stochastic sex determinants should resist elimination by genetic or environmental sex determinants under ecologically meaningful settings. On the empirical side, many sex-determination systems traditionally considered as environmental or polygenic actually provide evidence for large components of stochasticity. In reviewing the field, I argue that sex-determination systems should be considered within a three-ends continuum, rather than the classical two-ends continuum.

Keywords
bipotential gonad, bistability, developmental noise, ESD, GSD, phenotype switching, polygenic sex determination, stochasticity
Pubmed
Web of science
Create date
28/09/2016 17:59
Last modification date
20/08/2019 15:58
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