Figure 6.

Working hypothesis for the gonad transformation process. All zebrafish develop a juvenile ovary before the future males undergo gonadal transformation to form the testis. Several pathways and genes have been known to be involved in this process. Based on our results, we proposed that the same pathways and genes are also involved in the testis-to-ovary transformation process in the Asian seabass, despite the reversal of direction. The Asian seabass system is, hence, a mirror image of the zebrafish model. The arrows show the observed (zebrafish; top - blue) and/or expected (Asian seabass; bottom – pink) up- or downregulation of the genes or pathways during the gonadal transformation process.