Sex determination is one of the major developmental events in higher metazoans, where complex molecular mechanisms define two physiologically and behaviorally distinct organisms still genetically compatible. In honey bees, the sex determination cascade is initiated by the allelic composition of complementary sex determiner (csd) gene: males develop from hemi or homozygous embryos, whereas females develop from heterozygous embryos. In females, different alleles of csd lead to the formation of female-specific variants of feminizer (fem) and doublesex (dsx). In males, male-specific variants of fem and dsx are formed by default. In this paper, we investigated the genes of sex determination in the stingless bees Melipona quadrifasciata, Scaptotrigona postica, and Frieseomelitta varia. Our results revealed that the architecture of fem and dsx transcripts is highly conserved among the three stingless bee species, and also with honey bees.

中文翻译：

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无刺蜂物种中 doublesex 和 feminizer 基因的性别特异性变异的表征

性别决定是高等后生动物的主要发育事件之一，其中复杂的分子机制定义了两种在生理和行为上不同的生物，但仍然具有遗传相容性。在蜜蜂中，性别决定级联由互补性别决定子 (csd) 基因的等位基因组成启动：雄性从半合子或纯合胚胎发育，而雌性从杂合胚胎发育。在女性中，csd 的不同等位基因导致女性特异性变体 (feminizer (fem) 和 doublesex (dsx) 的形成)。在男性中，默认情况下会形成 fem 和 dsx 的男性特定变体。在本文中，我们研究了无刺蜜蜂 Melipona quadrifasciata、Scaptotrigona postica 和 Frieseomelitta varia 的性别决定基因。