Sex, Desert Islands, and A Question of Balance
Robin Lovell-Badge, CBE, FRS FMedSci
Friday, March 15
8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.
Sex determination in mammals depends on a fine balance of gene activity in the early gonads being tipped one way by the action of several factors, such as Wnt signalling and FOXL2, that favour ovarian development or by the activity of the Y-linked gene SRY and its direct target SOX9 that promote testis development. The initial decision to follow one fate rather than the other is then reinforced in subsequent embryonic development by additional genes acting in a redundant fashion. However, rather than becoming locked down, maintenance of ovaries or testes in the adult would appear to depend on the continuous activity of perhaps just one of these genes that are essential to repress the opposite pathway. Understanding how these gene regulatory networks operate depends on identifying not just the critical genes, but the regulatory elements that control their activity. This understanding is also revealing novel causes of disorders of sex differentiation (DSDs).
Important Dates
- March 12 - 16, 2019: 66th Annual Scientific Meeting