Abstract
In vitro cultures of intact chick gonads (organ cultures) and reaggregation cultures of dispersed gonad cells (roller cultures) were made. Gonads or gonad cells from 7-day-old chick embryos, at the stage when sex-specific differentiation begins, were cultured in the presence of presumed H-Y antigen-containing supernatants, or co-cultured in the presence of H-Y antigen-producing cell lines. The H-Y antigen-producing cells tested were of human, mouse, bovine and chicken origin. During organ culture, addition of supernatant of the human lymphoma cell line Daudi, or co-culture with Daudi cells, stimulated a clear proliferation of the germinal epithelium in male gonads, indicating feminization. A similar effect was obtained by treatment with estradiol. In reaggregation culture, the increase in nuclear size of germ cells was chosen as a parameter for feminization. A significant increase of germ cell nuclear size was observed in gonads cultured in the presence of Daudi supernatant. In both organ cultures and reaggregation cultures, other tested H-Y antigen sources and semi-purified H-Y antigen fractions did not exert significant effects on differentiation of the gonads or on the average area of the germ cell nuclei. These findings suggest that it is not H-Y antigen, but another protein produced by Daudi cells, that might be responsible for the sex-reversing effects.
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Hendriksen, P.J.M., Drews, U., Frankenhuis, M.T. et al. Daudi supernatant, unlike other H-Y antigen sources, exerts a sex-reversing effect on embryonic chick gonad differentiation. Anat Embryol 189, 317–325 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00190588
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00190588