Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 6, 2026
08:01
Computational Analysis of the Caenorhabditis elegans Germline to Study the Distribution of Nuclei, Proteins, and the Cytoskeleton
Published on: April 19, 2018
Enigma variations: control of sexual fate in nematode germ cells
1Department of Molecular Biology, The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, B303 Science Center, 2 Medical Center Drive, Stratford, NJ 08084, USA. ron.ellis@umdnj.edu
Genome Biology
|August 2, 2006
Abstract:
A new study showing that neither FEM-2 nor FEM-3 is required for spermatogenesis in Caenorhabditis briggsae, unlike in Caenorhabditis elegans, implies that the sex-determination pathway in these species is evolving rapidly, and supports the proposal that they evolved hermaphroditism independently.
Related Concept Videos
02:50Dosage Compensation
In animals, gender is determined by the number and type of sex chromosome. For example, human females have two X chromosomes, and males have one X and one Y chromosome, whereas C.elegans with one X chromosome is a male, and the one with two X chromosomes is a hermaphrodite.
In addition to sexual development, the X chromosome has genes involved in autosomal functions such as brain development and the immune system. Therefore, males and females with distinct numbers of X chromosomes will have...
In addition to sexual development, the X chromosome has genes involved in autosomal functions such as brain development and the immune system. Therefore, males and females with distinct numbers of X chromosomes will have...
02:32Position-effect Variegation
In 1928, a German botanist Emil Heitz observed the moss nuclei with a DNA binding dye. He observed that while some chromatin regions decondense and spread out in the interphase nucleus, others do not. He termed them euchromatin and heterochromatin, respectively. He proposed that the heterochromatin regions reflect a functionally inactive state of the genome. It was later confirmed that heterochromatin is transcriptionally repressed, and euchromatin is transcriptionally active chromatin.