ABSTRACTMammalian gonadal sex is determined by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. In male... more ABSTRACTMammalian gonadal sex is determined by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. In males, the Y chromosome initiates male gonadogenesis and the subsequent production of male-specific hormones defines the male state of each cell in the organism. In females, the lack of a Y chromosome and the presence of two X chromosomes triggers the development of female gonads, hormones, and cellular identity. However, sex chromosome-linked genes encoding dosage-sensitive transcription and epigenetic factors are expressed well before gonad formation and have the potential to establish sex-biased expression. Here, we apply a comparative bioinformatics analysis on published single-cell datasets from mouse and human during very early embryogenesis–from two-cell to preimplantation stages–to characterize sex-specific signals and to assess the degree of conservation among early-acting sex-specific genes and pathways. Clustering and regression analyses of gene expression across samples reveal th...
ABSTRACTMammalian gonadal sex is determined by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. In male... more ABSTRACTMammalian gonadal sex is determined by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. In males, the Y chromosome initiates male gonadogenesis and the subsequent production of male-specific hormones defines the male state of each cell in the organism. In females, the lack of a Y chromosome and the presence of two X chromosomes triggers the development of female gonads, hormones, and cellular identity. However, sex chromosome-linked genes encoding dosage-sensitive transcription and epigenetic factors are expressed well before gonad formation and have the potential to establish sex-biased expression. Here, we apply a comparative bioinformatics analysis on published single-cell datasets from mouse and human during very early embryogenesis–from two-cell to preimplantation stages–to characterize sex-specific signals and to assess the degree of conservation among early-acting sex-specific genes and pathways. Clustering and regression analyses of gene expression across samples reveal th...
Uploads