ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Reproduction
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1632672
This article is part of the Research TopicEndocrine Regulation of Ovarian Follicle Development and Oocyte Maturation: Molecular Mechanisms and Functional InsightsView all articles
Estrogen receptor and temperature independently influence sex determination in the red-eared slider turtle
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China
- 2Fudan University, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
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In reptiles with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), including the redeared slider turtle Trachemys scripta elegans, female sex determination is sensitive to estrogen. However, the underlying molecular mechanism by which estrogen facilitate ovarian development remains unclear in TSD. Here, we explore the role of estrogen receptors (ESRs) in ovarian differentiation by administrating 17β-estradiol (E2), as well as agonists and antagonists of ESRs to embryos of red-eared sliders. We found that treatment with E2 or one of ESR (ESRα, ESRβ or GPER1) agonists induced typical female characteristics of gonads at male-producing temperature (MPT), exhibiting advanced outer cortex and degraded medullary cord as well as upregulation of Cyp19a1 and Foxl2 and downregulation of Amh and Dmrt1. In addition, this maleto-female sex reversal induced by E2 at MPT can be reversed by using a combination of three ESR antagonists. However, antagonizing either any one of three ESRs or three together did not affect ovarian differentiation at female-producing temperature (FPT). Our study demonstrates that estrogen regulates the expression of estrogenresponsive sex-specific genes through the ESRs to induce ovarian differentiation at MPT, and ESRs don't have to engage in ovarian development directly at FPT, indicating that alternative pathways might drive feminization under natural hightemperature conditions.
Keywords: Red-eared slider turtle, Temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), estrogen, estrogen receptor (ESR), Ovarian Differentiation
Received: 21 May 2025; Accepted: 24 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Ding, Wu, Fu and Du. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Weiguo Du, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China
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