Identification and expression pattern of three sex-related genes in the shrimp Neocaridina denticulata sinensis (Decapoda, Caridea)

What is it about?

The sex determination and differentiation process of economic crustaceans have been regarded as the focus of aquaculture for a long time because of the sex-related weight differences. To produce a reliable molecular marker for sex in Caridina and to investigate molecular sex differentiation, we therefore focused on identifying sex-specific transcriptomic differences. In this study, we found three sex-specific expression genes, NDM, Sushi, and NDF, after a large number of transcriptome data screening. NDM and Sushi are male-specific expression genes, and NDF is a female-specific expression gene. These three genes can act molecular markers for the sex identification of crustaceans in different developmental stages, especially sex identification with the same morphological characteristics for embryos and juvenile decapods. At the same time, we explored the relationship between these three genes and sex differentiation. RNA interference treatment results show that knockdown of nd-IAG can change the expression of NDM and NDF.

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