Two papers unraveled the mystery of sex determination and benthic adaptation of the flatfish
Researchers from Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fisheries Sciences, BGI-Shenzhen and other institutes have successfully decoded the first genome of a flatfish - half-smooth tongue sole (Cynoglossus semilaevis), providing insights into ZW sex chromosome evolution and adaptation to a benthic lifestyle. The data generated in this project also lay foundation on the genetic breeding of tongue sole. The latest study has been published online today in Nature Genetics. In another study published in Genome Research at the same time, the researchers also uncovered the epigenetic mechanism underlying the temperature-dependent sexual reversal as well as the trans-generational inheritance of such sexual reversal phenomena in tongue sole.