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Biotech / Medical : Ligand (LGND) Breakout! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Flagrante Delictu who wrote (15306)	2/19/1998 9:18:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32384

Speaking of moon shots, the same issue of Nature has an article on sex determining genes, and guess what. The molecular master switch for controlling the female phenotype is yet another nuclear hormone receptor (IR), which is precisely where 80% of LGND's research effort is directed: Dax1 antagonizes Sry action in mammalian sex determination DAX1, which encodes an unusual member of the nuclear hormone-receptor superfamily, is a gene that may be responsible for a sex-reversal syndrome in humans, referred to as dosage-sensitive sex reversal, in which XY individuals carrying duplications of Xp21, part of the small arm of the X chromosome, develop as females. XY mice carrying extra copies of mouse Dax1 as a transgene show delayed testis development when the gene is expressed at high levels, but do not normally show sex reversal. Complete sex reversal occurs, however, when the transgene is tested against weak alleles of the sex-determining Y-chromosome gene Sry. These results show that DAX1 is largely, if not solely, responsible for dosage-sensitive sex reversal and provide a model for early events in mammalian sex determination, when precise levels and timing of gene expression are critical. A Swain, V Narvaez, P Burgoyne, G Camerino & R Lovell-Badge Dax1 antagonizes Sry action in mammalian sex determination (Article) Nature 391, 761 (1998)