AUTHOR=Xu Hai-Jing , Chen Yi-Lai , Wang Yong-Mei , Luo Jing-Yu , Li Jian-Wen , Shen Shuai-Qi , Yang Jin-Shu , Ma Wen-Ming 

TITLE=Full Functional Sex Reversal Achieved Through Silencing of MroDmrt11E Gene in Macrobrachium rosenbergii: Production of All-Male Monosex Freshwater Prawn

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Endocrinology

VOLUME=12

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2021.772498

DOI=10.3389/fendo.2021.772498

ISSN=1664-2392

ABSTRACT=<p>The freshwater prawn <italic>Macrobrachium rosenbergii</italic> is one kind of important economic aquaculture species and displays remarkable sexual dimorphism. The molecular mechanism of sexual differentiation in <italic>M. rosenbergii</italic> has been primarily unraveled through the research efforts of the androgenic gland and its related genes. However, the understanding of conserved genes involved in the molecular mechanism underpinning sex determination and sexual differentiation of <italic>M. rosenbergii</italic> is still fragmentary. <italic>MroDmrt11E</italic> is a member of the doublesex and mab-3-related transcription factor (Dmrt) gene family and is prominently expressed in the testis. In the present study, <italic>in vivo</italic> knockdown of <italic>MroDmrt11E</italic> at the postlarva stage in male prawn induced a complete and functional sex reversal and achieved the production of an all-male monosex population. Furthermore, a great deal of new information of upregulated and downregulated transcriptions involved in sexual differentiation of <italic>MroDmrt11E</italic> knockdown was enriched by comparative transcriptomic analysis. The effects of RNAi-mediated gene knockdown of <italic>MroDmrt11E</italic> on the differentially expressed and sex-related candidate genes, such as <italic>transformer, fruitless, feminization, insulin-like androgenic gland</italic> gene, <italic>Dmrt</italic> gene family, were primarily focused on, and their possible molecular regulatory relationships in sexual differentiation were analyzed. Meanwhile, the response of primary Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) biological pathways was investigated to expound the potential roles of <italic>MroDmrt11E</italic> in male sexual differentiation, which provided a deeper understanding of the molecular regulatory network underlying sexual differentiation of <italic>M. rosenbergii</italic>. The finding provided a novel sexual manipulation technique through silencing of <italic>Dmrt</italic> gene family for achieving a complete and functional sex reversal and offered a new insight regarding the mechanism of the Dmrt gene family in the sexual differentiation of crustaceans.</p>