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Maternal iron deficiency causes male-to-female sex reversal in mouse embryos
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Maternal iron deficiency causes male-to-female sex reversal in mouse embryos
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Journal Article
Maternal iron deficiency causes male-to-female sex reversal in mouse embryos
2025
Overview
Ferrous iron (Fe
2+
) is essential in all eukaryotic cells for various oxidoreductase reactions, including the demethylation of DNA and proteins. Histone demethylation is required for normal epigenetic regulation of the Y-chromosomal sex-determining gene
Sry
in developing gonads during male sex determination
1
,
2
. Here we investigate the potential connection between iron metabolism, histone demethylation and sex determination in mammals. We found that Fe
2+
-producing pathways are substantially activated in mouse embryonic gonads during the sex-determining period. Chelation of iron in cultured XY gonads reduced the level of KDM3A-mediated H3K9 demethylation of
Sry
, mostly abolished
Sry
expression and caused the gonads to express ovarian markers. In vivo, conditional deletion of the gene
Tfrc
—which is required for iron incorporation—in fetal XY gonadal somatic cells, or acute pharmaceutical suppression of available iron in pregnant mice, resulted in male-to-female gonadal sex reversal in a proportion of offspring, highlighting the pivotal role of iron metabolism in male sex determination. Finally, long-term feeding of pregnant mice with a low-iron diet, when combined with a heterozygous variant of
Kdm3a
that by itself has no observable effect, suppressed
Sry
expression and caused male-to-female sex reversal in some of the progeny, revealing a connection between maternal dietary iron and fetal developmental outcomes.
Iron-deficient conditions in pregnant mice can cause XY mouse embryos to develop female rather than male genitalia, revealing that iron metabolism has a role in determining male sex in mice.
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
Subject
/ Animals
/ Embryo, Mammalian - embryology
/ Embryo, Mammalian - metabolism
/ Embryos
/ Female
/ Females
/ Fetuses
/ Gonads
/ Histones
/ Humanities and Social Sciences
/ Iron
/ Jumonji Domain-Containing Histone Demethylases - deficiency
/ Jumonji Domain-Containing Histone Demethylases - genetics
/ Jumonji Domain-Containing Histone Demethylases - metabolism
/ Male
/ Males
/ Mice
/ Proteins
/ Science
/ Sex
/ Sex Determination Processes - drug effects
/ Sex Determination Processes - genetics
/ Sex-Determining Region Y Protein - genetics
