Editor's Summary

24 July 2008

Male bee or not male bee

Gender in the honeybee is determined by the combination of alleles (variants) at a single gene, in contrast to systems based on sex chromosomes. Fifteen different alleles at the 'master regulator' csd gene are known in honeybee populations. Male honeybees develop from eggs with two copies of the same variant, and females from eggs with different csd alleles. Now a new component of the sex-determining pathway in honeybees has been identified. Called feminizer, the fem gene implements the switch of the male and female pathways, thus linking allelic diversity at csd to the developmental program. Comparisons of the gene sequences across five bee species suggest that today's master regulator, csd, originated recently from its 'slave', the fem gene, by gene duplication and evolved its novel function by adaptive darwinian evolution.

Letter: Evidence for the evolutionary nascence of a novel sex determination pathway in honeybees

Martin Hasselmann, Tanja Gempe, Morten Schiøtt, Carlos Gustavo Nunes-Silva, Marianne Otte & Martin Beye

doi:10.1038/nature07052

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