Transgenic Expression of the piRNA-Resistant Masculinizer Gene Induces Female-Specific Lethality and Partial Female-to-Male Sex Reversal in the Silkworm, Bombyx mori
Fig 5
Morphological abnormalities observed in the ovary of the Sumi13-3 females.
(A) (B) Ovaries dissected from the newly exuviated third instar larvae. (A) Sumi13-3 +/+ female; (B) Sumi13-3 Masc-R/+ female. (A’) (B’) The dotted lines indicate ovarioles. The solid line indicates basement membrane. (C) (E) The ovaries of the newly exuviated fifth instar larvae of Sumi13-3 +/+ females (C) and Masc-R/+ females (E). (D) The basement membrane of the ovary in C was removed. (F) The basement membrane of the ovary in E was removed. (G) The boxed area in F is enlarged. (H) The testis of the newly exuviated +/+ male fifth instar larvae. The basement membrane was removed. (I) The boxed area in H is enlarged. (J) BmR1 and Bmdsx mRNA expression patterns of the gonads, which were collected from newly exuviated fifth instar larvae, were analyzed by RT-PCR. The same RT-PCR was performed with cDNAs prepared from either the Masc-R/+ ovaries without the globular tissues (lane 5) or the globular tissues alone (lane 6). Amplified products were separated by 1% agarose gel electrophoresis. The top panel shows BmR1 expression. The middle panel indicates the female- and male-specific splice variants of Bmdsx (BmdsxF1, BmdsxF2, and BmdsxM, respectively). The bottom panel shows amplification of the GAPDH transcript, which served as a positive control for RNA extraction and RT-PCR. ovl: ovariole, tl: testis-like globular tissue.