Abstract
Many environmental stressors, including stress temperature, high density, hypoxia, low food availability, high social pressure, and bright background colour, have been found to cause masculinization in fish. The environmental-friendly factors-induced masculinization provides a possibility of environmental-friendly mono-sex production for aquaculture. In the present work, we found high temperature (33.5 °C) or cortisol administration (300 mg kg−1 feed) covering the critical period of ovarian differentiation (15–38 days post-fertilization, DPF) caused partial masculinization of XX genotype in yellow catfish, via the application of sex-linked markers and successive histological analysis containing critical time window of ovarian and testicular differentiation and differentiated gonads, including 25 DPF, 35 DPF, 45 DPF, 65 DPF, and 125 DPH of XX female, XX male, and XY male. The masculinization modes in high temperature and cortisol administration groups were similar, including repression of primordial germ cells proliferation and retention of the ovarian cavity in XX pseudo-male. XX male was similar to XY male at both transcriptional and morphological levels, via RNA-seq analysis and morphological characteristics and gonadal histology respectively, providing a possibility to produce functional XX males and all-female XX population on a large-scale through an environmental-friendly approach for yellow catfish. The establishment and application of an environmental-friendly approach for mono-sex production will reduce the usage of steroid hormones and functionally similar chemicals in the aquaculture industry.
Published Version
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