卤虫的生殖方式及其调控机制研究进展

Progress of studies on reproductive modes and mechanisms of regulation in Artemia

生物的生殖方式及其调控机制是生命科学最基础和最重要的研究内容之一。卤虫是一类具有优良经济价值和科研价值的小型甲壳动物,依据生殖方式可分为八个两性物种和众多地理孤雌种群,是理想的生殖机制研究模型动物。对于卤虫生殖机制的早期研究主要集中于两性物种/孤雌种群鉴定、染色体核型分析、种间杂交实验、生物地理学、群体遗传学等方面,也存在着不少争议性的结果。近年来,随着相关研究数据的积累和卤虫完整基因组序列的解析,对于卤虫性别决定机制以及孤雌发生机制的研究已逐渐聚焦于基因组水平的基因表达调控等方面。在这一背景下,本文总结了卤虫生殖机制的研究历史和前沿,并结合本团队的研究和思考,分别对两性卤虫和孤雌卤虫的性别调控机制相关信息进行了整理,并对今后相关领域的研究方向和有待解决的问题进行了展望。

The reproductive mode and its regulating mechanism is one of the most fundamental and important issues concerned in life sciences.The genus Artemia is a group of small crustaceans that have significant economic and scientific research values.According to reproductive modes,Artemia has eight bisexual species and quite a few geographic parthenogenetic populations,providing an ideal research model for the study of the mechanism of reproduction.Previous studies on the reproductive regulation in Artemia have been focusing on discrimination of bisexual species and parthenogenetic populations,chromosomal karyotyping,interspecific hybridization,biogeography,population genetics,etc.,which sometimes led to disputed results.In recent years,with more and more accumulated evidence and the accomplishment of the whole Artemia genomes,research interests on sex determination and origin of parthenogenesis have gradually converged towards a unified focus on gene expression regulation at the genomic level.In this context,this paper summarizes the research history and frontier of the mechanism of reproduction in Artemia,and combines the research and considerations of our team to sort out the information of sex regulation mechanisms of both bisexual and parthenogenetic Artemia.We also look forward to future research directions and the problems to be solved.