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Gene Stops Ovaries from Testifying
Little girls are made of sugar and spice and, according to a study published in the journal Cell, a fierce determination to maintain their girlishness. Because it seems that a single gene keeps their ovaries from turning into testes.
香香甜甜、温柔可爱是女孩子们的天性，而《细胞》杂志上刊登的一篇研究表明使这种女性特征得以维系依赖于一种顶级基因测定--一种单基因抑制着女孩子们的卵巢变成睾丸。
Scientists have long thought that the ovary is the default setting for developing sex organs. That"s because the male Y chromosome comes equipped with a so-called sex determination gene called SRY. If SRY is missing, the gonad develops into an ovary, even if the embryo is male. Add SRY to a female embryo, it"ll make testes. But the new work implies that sex determination is not that simple.
长期以来，科学家们一直认为卵巢主宰着性器官发育。这是因为男性Y染色体自身携带了决定雄性性别的基因片段--SRY基因。如果SRY基因缺失，即使是男性胚胎，其性腺也会发育成卵巢。而女性胚胎中若有SRY基因，则性腺将发育为睾丸。不过，这项新研究意味着性别鉴定并非如此简单。
Okay, buckle up. See, the SRY gene makes a male by turning on another gene called Sox9. But it turns out that females have a trump card called FOX L2. FOX L2 switches off Sox9, which lets ovaries be ovaries. The surprise is that girls have to keep the FOX L2 gene active forever. In studies of mice, if FOX L2 gets shut off, even in an adult, the ovaries will turn into testes. Which for a girl means ball game over.
下面，请听好了。Sox9基因被SRY基因激活从而使睾丸得到发育形成男性特征。但是，事实表明，女性基因中有个叫做FOX L2的王牌，它可以阻断Sox9被激活，而保证卵巢的正常发育。而令人吃惊的是，女孩们必须使FOX L2基因一直保持活跃状态。在对实验鼠的研究当中发现，如果FOX L2基因停止运转，即使已经成年，卵巢也会变成睾丸。对女孩而言，这意味着女儿身将不再。
-Karen Hopkin
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