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Reproductive biology

Do males rely on female hormones?

Nature volume 390, pages 447–448 (1997)Cite this article

It is true that ‘hormones maketh the man’. Without the effects of androgens (the prime example of which is testosterone), the adult male is largely demasculinized in appearance, behaviour and drive. In the womb, androgens produced by the fetal testis divert development from the (default) female pathway along the male pathway. Without this hormonal ‘intervention’, genetic males would develop as phenotypic, but infertile, females. In contrast, adult females make large amounts of oestrogens which literally shape the female form during puberty. The concept that oestrogens mean female whereas androgens equal male is therefore true but, predictably, it is not this simple.

Both sexes make androgens and oestrogens. A minor role for oestrogens in the male — in regulation of gonadotrophin secretion from the pituitary gland — is accepted. But oestrogens may exert more widespread effects in the male and, remarkably, they may even be essential for fertility. This stems from the discovery that transgenic male mice lacking the α form of the oestrogen receptor (ER-α gene knockout, or ERKO, mice) are infertile1. Now, a report by Hess et al.2 on page 509of this issue provides the first mechanistic clue as to why this may be so.

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Figure 1: Oestrogens and androgens — two sides of the same coin.

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  1. the MRC Reproductive Biology Unit, 37 Chalmers Street, Edinburgh, EH3 9EW, UK

    Richard M. Sharpe

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  1. Richard M. Sharpe
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Sharpe, R. Do males rely on female hormones?. Nature 390, 447–448 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/37236

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