OF MICE AND WOMEN




NEW SCIENTIST NEWS

Laboratory mice which unexpectedly changed sex could help explain human
sex switches. Male mice have unexpectedly been found to switch sex if
they lack a gene previously linked with lung development. If the same is true in
humans, it might help to explain why some people who are genetically "male" -
they have a Y chromosome - develop female genitals." "It could be involved in
cases of human sex reversal," says David Ornitz, head of the team that made the
discovery at Washington University Medical School in St Louis, Missouri.

The researchers suggest screening the DNA of people with sex reversal to see if
they have mutations in the gene, or in other genes which activate it. Sex reversal
occurs in one person in every 20,000, but only 10 percent of cases have been
traced to known genetic causes. Could it be, says Ornitz, that defects in a
gene called Fgf9 are to blame for some of rest? The gene makes a substance called
fibroblast growth factor nine. Ornitz and his colleagues stumbled upon the sex link
during experiments to investigate how lungs develop in mice. They genetically
engineered the mice so that Fgf9 no longer worked. Sure enough, the lungs did
not develop and the mice were all stillborn. But the surprises came when he
took a look at the prostate gland, which was also suspected to rely on Fgf9 for
development. To his surprise, there were no prostate glands, or male genitals,
in the 10 of the 12 "male" mice with Y chromosomes. "It looked like complete
sex reversal," says Ornitz. "The male sex organs had completely regressed."
Instead, the males had all developed female sex organs. Geneticists
in Britain established in 1990 that in mice, and probably in humans,
the master gene determining maleness is SRY. The gene makes a switch
called a transcription factor that activates other genes and sets in motion the
formation of male sex organs in most mammals. Ornitz believes that
Fgf9 works further along the production line. He suggests that fibroblast
growth factor nine performs at least two crucial functions. First, it triggers
multiplication of cells crucial to the development of the testes. Second,
it tells them to migrate to the site where the testes develop.

"In the absence of these first two events, the testicular cords fail to
develop," says Ornitz. Ultimately, female sex organs develop instead by
default. Robin Lovell-Badge, the geneticist at the National Institute of
Medical Research in London who discovered SRY in 1990, says that
the finding is important. The crucial thing is that unlike the transcription factors
produced by SRY and another important "downstream" gene called SOX3,
the newly discovered gene leads to signaling between cells. "That seems to be
very important," says Lovell-Badge. "The evidence for migration looks very strong."