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    Home > Biochemistry News > Biotechnology News > Three kinds of hermaphrodite algae found in Japanese rivers

    Three kinds of hermaphrodite algae found in Japanese rivers

    • Last Update: 2021-08-01
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    For 30 years, Hisayoshi Nozaki, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo, has been visiting the Sagami River an hour west of Tokyo and collecting algae samples to understand how organisms evolved into different sexes


    This three-sex phenomenon is slightly different from hermaphrodite


    The three sexes of the star-shaped Pleodorina starrii are male, female and the third sex.


    "It seems very rare to find species with three sexes, but under natural conditions, I think it might not be so rare," said Nozaki, the last author of a research paper published in the journal Evolution


    In the course of evolution, the germ cells of ancient organisms are similar in appearance and are called positive and negative cells, rather than males or females


    Nozaki and his colleagues are interested in Pleodorina starrii because it and its close relatives evolved using different gender systems, so they are useful models for studying the genetics of gender evolution


    In the laboratory, researchers can observe green stellate Plasmodium cells growing together with other individuals of the same sex in spherical colonies


    Researchers separate the colony of bees and then deprive them of nutrients, forcing them to reproduce sexually


    In 2006, Nozaki and other experts from the University of Tokyo discovered a male-specific gene in starrii for the first time and named it OTOKOGI, which means "male" in Japanese


    After genetic analysis and more mating experiments, the researchers finally concluded that starrii has a "two sex factor" gene, which may be located on a chromosome separate from the OTOKOGI and HIBOTAN sex genes


    Genetically speaking, the male stellate butterfly has only the OTOKOGI male gene, while genetically speaking, the female stellate butterfly can have only the female HIBOTAN gene, or both HIBOTAN and the hermaphrodite gene


    More experiments are needed to understand genes in more detail, but researchers suspect that bisexual factors may only be active in the presence of "masculine" OTOKOGI


    "This discovery is possible because we have very long-term practical experience in field collection, travel, and planting and research of algae


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