El Zaiat, Maeva, Jouneau, Luc, Thepot, Dominique, Klopp, Christophe, Bonnet, Aurelie, Cabau, Cédric, André, Marjolaine, Chaffaux, Stéphane, Cribiu, Edmond-Paul, Pailhoux, Eric, Pannetier, Maëlle, Biologie du développement et reproduction (BDR), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort (ENVA)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Unité de Biométrie et Intelligence Artificielle (UBIA), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Génétique Physiologie et Systèmes d'Elevage (GenPhySE ), École nationale supérieure agronomique de Toulouse [ENSAT]-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire de Toulouse (ENVT), Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) (Toulouse INP), Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) (Toulouse INP), Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées, Système d'Information des GENomes des Animaux d' Elevage (Sigenae), Génétique Animale et Biologie Intégrative (GABI), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-AgroParisTech, Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (ANR-09-GENM-009-03), Biologie du Développement et Reproduction (BDR), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire de Toulouse (ENVT), Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-École nationale supérieure agronomique de Toulouse [ENSAT], and AgroParisTech-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)
Maeva Elzaiat is the recipient of a Ph.D. fellowship from Université Paris Sud-11 and from the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (FDT20140930877)Aurelie Allais Bonnet is the recipient of a fellowship from ANR-09-GENM-009-03 GENIDOVà reprendre pour la pagination officielle; FOXL2 loss of function in goats leads to the early transdifferentiation of ovaries into testes, then to the full sex reversal of XX homozygous mutants. By contrast, Foxl2 loss of function in mice induces an arrest of follicle formation after birth, followed by complete female sterility. In order to understand the molecular role of FOXL2 during ovarian differentiation in the goat species, putative FOXL2 target genes were determined at the earliest stage of gonadal sex-specific differentiation by comparing the mRNA profiles of XX gonads expressing the FOXL2 protein or not. Of these 163 deregulated genes, around two-thirds corresponded to testicular genes that were up-regulated when FOXL2 was absent, and only 19 represented female-associated genes, down-regulated in the absence of FOXL2. FOXL2 should therefore be viewed as an antitestis gene rather than as a female-promoting gene. In particular, the key testis-determining gene DMRT1 was found to be up-regulated ahead of SOX9, thus suggesting in goats that SOX9 primary up-regulation may require DMRT1. Overall, our results equated to FOXL2 being an antitestis gene, allowing us to propose an alternative model for the sex-determination process in goats that differs slightly from that demonstrated in mice.