BioEssays 1/2011

摘要

Cover Photograph: Honey bee and bumble bee hovering over poppy. Animals have evolved a great variety of different sex determination mechanisms. In this issue (pages 52–60) Tanja Gempe and Martin Beye take a look at sex determination genes in non-model insects as well as Drosophila and summarise the different ways in which sex determination is achieved molecularly. Sex determination systems use different genes and regulatory mechanisms to establish activities in either males or females to control a shared gene switch that regulates sexual development. This review also discusses the forces that drive divergence in sex determination and how novel sex determination systems can evolve from the ancestral genetic repertoire.