Neonatal mice possessing an Sry transgene show a masculinized pattern of progesterone receptor expression in the brain independent of sex chromosome status.

Abstract

To assess the relative roles of sex chromosome genes and gonadal steroid hormones in producing sex differences in progesterone receptor (PR) expression in the forebrain of neonatal mice, we used mice in which the Sry gene had been deleted from the Y-chromosome and inserted as a transgene on an autosome in both XX and XY genotypes. Levels of PR immunoreactivity (PRir) in the anteroventral periventricular nucleus, the medial preoptic nucleus, and the ventromedial nucleus were significantly higher in mice that possessed an Sry transgene compared with mice that lacked an Sry transgene, regardless of their complement of sex chromosomes (XX vs. XY). This result suggests that sexual differentiation of PR expression in these regions is likely controlled mainly by gonadal hormones, not by the genetic sex of the brain cells. No differences in PRir were detected between wild-type XY mice with the Sry gene on the Y-chromosome and XY mice with the Sry transgene, suggesting that testicular hormones produced in these two genotypes have comparable effects on neural tissue.