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. 2024 Feb 2;12:1353598. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2024.1353598

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Copyright © 2024 Menzies, Tarulli, Frankenberg and Pask.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Phylogenetic reconstruction of the relaxin family locus (RFL) and the origin of INSL3/RXFP2-mediated testicular descent in vertebrates. Monotremes and non-mammalian vertebrates (after the split from tetrapods) possess two RFLC genes denoted as RFLC-I and RFLC-II. These genes encode RLN3 and INSL3 in therian mammals, respectively. However, the monotreme RFLC-II gene groups phylogenetically with the ancestral RLN3 gene as opposed to all therian (eutherian and marsupial) INSL3 genes, which suggests it arose independently in a therian ancestor to drive testicular descent (a character trait of 99.9% of therian mammals).