| First Author | Miyawaki S | Year | 2020 |
| Journal | Science | Volume | 370 |
| Issue | 6512 | Pages | 121-124 |
| PubMed ID | 33004521 | Mgi Jnum | J:297093 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6471836 | Doi | 10.1126/science.abb6430 |
| Citation | Miyawaki S, et al. (2020) The mouse Sry locus harbors a cryptic exon that is essential for male sex determination. Science 370(6512):121-124 |
| abstractText | The mammalian sex-determining gene Sry induces male development. Since its discovery 30 years ago, Sry has been believed to be a single-exon gene. Here, we identified a cryptic second exon of mouse Sry and a corresponding two-exon type Sry (Sry-T) transcript. XY mice lacking Sry-T were sex-reversed, and ectopic expression of Sry-T in XX mice induced male development. Sry-T messenger RNA is expressed similarly to that of canonical single-exon type Sry (Sry-S), but SRY-T protein is expressed predominantly because of the absence of a degron in the C terminus of SRY-S. Sry exon2 appears to have evolved recently in mice through acquisition of a retrotransposon-derived coding sequence to replace the degron. Our findings suggest that in nature, SRY-T, not SRY-S, is the bona fide testis-determining factor. |
