ASER：Animal Sex Reversal database
Sex reversal, representing extraordinary sexual plasticity during the life cycle, not only triggers reproduction in animals but also affects reproductive and endocrine system-related diseases and cancers in humans. Sex reversal has been broadly reported in animals, however, an integrated resource hub of sex reversal information is still lacking.
Here, we constructed a comprehensive database named ASER by integrating sex reversal-related data of 18 species from teleostei to mammals. We systematically collected 40,018 published papers and mined the sex reversal-associated genes (SRGs), including their regulatory networks, from 1611 core papers. We annotated homologous genes and computed conservation scores for whole genomes across the 18 species. Furthermore, we collected available RNA-seq datasets and investigated the expression dynamics of SRGs during sex reversal or sex determination processes. In addition, we manually annotated 550 in situ hybridization (ISH), fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), and immunohistochemistry (IHC) images of SRGs from the literature and described their spatial expression in the gonads. Collectively, ASER provides a unique and integrated resource for researchers to query and reuse organized data to explore the mechanisms and applications of SRGs in animal breeding and human health. (DOI: 10.1016/j.gpb.2021.10.001)
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Summary of SRGs
We retrieved thousands of articles from PubMed by querying species and functional keywords (e.g., sex reversal). We counted the frequency of the words from the literature and manually filtered out some high-frequency but irrelevant words such as “masculinizing”, “ovotestes”, “pseudomale”, “hermaphrodite”, and “gynogenesis” into a blacklist until most of the high-frequency words were gene symbols and drug names. The remaining words related to genes and drugs were manually added to the wordlist and converted into a word cloud diagram, which visually presented the key genes (e.g., sox9, sry) and related drugs (e.g., 17α-methyltestosterone (MT)) associated with sex reversal.
We retained 1,611 papers that contained the words in the wordlist and manually read them with notations about SRG regulation. Finally, we found 258 SRGs, 6 drugs and 11 hormones, which were validated to be functional in sex reversal in different species, and constructed the regulatory networks of SRGs. We next predicted another 498 genes that were homologous with those SRGs in the 18 species.