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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Jun 15.
Published in final edited form as: Arch Biochem Biophys. 2014 Oct 25;576:17–31. doi: 10.1016/j.abb.2014.10.008

Figure 5.

Figure 5

Model for sex-specific regulation of mitochondrial maintenance pathways. Chromosomal sex determines the on/off state of the master regulator of dosage compensation (DC) the “Switch-Gene”: Sxl in Drosophila, sdc-2 in C. elegans, and Xist in humans. This sets DC to either the male (M) or female (F) state. Chromosomal sex also directs the expression the dsx-like gene in either the male or female state, which in turn regulates somatic sexual differentiation. Females exhibit relatively greater IIS and p53 activity (indicated in pink). Males exhibit relatively greater Foxo activity (indicated in blue). In C. elegans, DC negatively regulates expression of the X-linked gene akt-2, which is a positive regulator of IIS (indicated in green). In mammals, the gonadal hormones testosterone and estrogen activate a MAPK/PI3K/AKT/TOR signaling pathway that can activate IIS and potentially inhibit autophagy (indicated in orange).