Temperature-Induced Sex Differentiation in River Prawn (Macrobrachium nipponense): Mechanisms and Effects.

Gang Jiang, Yucai Xue, Xuxiong Huang

International journal of molecular sciences 2024 Jan 19

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Macrobrachium nipponense is gonochoristic and sexually dimorphic. The male prawn grows faster and usually has a larger size than the female. Therefore, a higher male proportion in stock usually results in higher yield. To investigate the impact of temperature on sexual differentiation in M. nipponense, two temperature treatments (26 °C and 31 °C) were conducted. The results showed that compared to the 31 °C treatment (3.20 ± 0.12), the 26 °C treatment displayed a lower female/male ratio (2.20 ± 0.11), which implied that a lower temperature could induce masculinization in M. nipponense. The temperature-sensitive sex differentiation phase was 25-35 days post hatching (DPH) at 26 °C while 15-20 DPH at 31 °C. Transcriptome and qPCR analysis revealed that a lower temperature up-regulated the expression of genes related to androgen secretion, and down-regulated the expressions of genes related to oogonia differentiation. Thirty-one temperature-regulated sex-differentiation genes were identified and the molecular mechanism of temperature-regulated sex differentiation was suggested. The finding of this study indicates that temperature regulation can be proposed as an innovative strategy for improving the culture yield of M. nipponense.

Citation

Gang Jiang, Yucai Xue, Xuxiong Huang. Temperature-Induced Sex Differentiation in River Prawn (Macrobrachium nipponense): Mechanisms and Effects. International journal of molecular sciences. 2024 Jan 19;25(2)