Dmrt gene family plays a very critical role in sex determination and differentiation in animals. In this study, dmrt1, dmrt2 and dmrt3 were first cloned from the gonads of mandarin fish (Siniperca chuatsi). The complete open reading frame sequences of dmrt1, dmrt2 and dmrt3 were 891, 1581 and 1419 bp, encoding 296, 526 and 473 amino acids. Multiple sequence alignments revealed that dmrt proteins were highly conserved in teleosts, especially in DNA-binding domain. Tissue distribution analysis showed that dmrt1 expressed mainly in testis, dmrt2 expressed in ovary and dmrt3 expressed in heart, muscle and gonad. Gonad expression pattern revealed dmrt1 mainly expressed in testis after 15 day after hatching, while dmrt2 mainly expressed after 60 dah. After 17α-methyltestosterone treatment, expression levels of dmrt1 and dmrt3 increased significantly, while dmrt2 expression was repressed. Furthermore, luciferase assay showed dmrt1 could activate gsdf-promotor and inhibit cyp19a1a-promotor alone in vitro. These results suggest that the dmrt1 play a most important role in testis differentiation/development and dmrt2 is critical in ovary development in mandarin fish.

Dmrt 基因家族在动物的性别决定和分化中起着非常关键的作用。在这项研究中，dmrt1、dmrt2和dmrt3首先从鳜鱼 ( Siniperca chuatsi )的性腺中克隆。dmrt1、dmrt2和dmrt3的完整开放阅读框序列为891、1581和1419bp，编码296、526和473个氨基酸。多重序列比对表明，dmrt 蛋白在硬骨鱼类中高度保守，尤其是在 DNA 结合域中。组织分布分析表明，DMRT1主要表达在睾丸，dmrt2在卵巢，并表示dmrt3在心脏、肌肉和性腺中表达。性腺表达模式显示dmrt1主要在孵化后 15 天后在睾丸中表达，而dmrt2主要在 60天后表达。17α-甲基睾酮处理后，dmrt1和dmrt3的表达水平显着增加，而dmrt2的表达受到抑制。此外，荧光素酶测定表明dmrt1可以在体外单独激活 gsdf 启动子并抑制 cyp19a1a 启动子。这些结果表明dmrt1在睾丸分化/发育中起最重要的作用，而dmrt2在鳜鱼的卵巢发育中起关键作用。