In a study of a species of African butterfly, researchers have discovered a previously undescribed molecular mechanism of how the sex of an embryo is initially specified.
Across species, a molecular switch is required to initiate development of a newly formed embryo into a female or a male. The genetic identity of this molecular switch, and how it actually works, differs widely across animal groups, which implies that over evolutionary time the sex determination mechanism is under pressure to change.
In butterflies and moths, it is the females that determine the sex of offspring. The most common sex determination switch is thought to be a gene . However, a cost of this mechanism is that ZZ embryos with identical copies ofare sent down the female developmental pathway and die as embryos because of imbalances between the expression of genes on the Z chromosome and autosomes .
New Species Insects (Including Butterflies) Genetics Evolutionary Biology Biotechnology And Bioengineering Molecular Biology Cloning
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