Doublesex and mab-3 related transcription factor 1, also known as DMRT1, is a protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

 which in humans is encoded by the DMRT1 gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

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Function

This gene is found in a cluster with two other members of the gene family, having in common a zinc finger

Zinc finger

Zinc fingers are small protein structural motifs that can coordinate one or more zinc ions to help stabilize their folds. They can be classified into several different structural families and typically function as interaction modules that bind DNA, RNA, proteins, or small molecules...

-like DNA-binding motif (DM domain). The DM domain

DM domain

In molecular biology the DM domain is a protein domain first discovered in the doublesex proteins of Drosophila melanogaster and is also seen in proteins from Caenorhabditis elegans. In D. melanogaster the doublesex gene controls somatic sexual differentiation by producing alternatively spliced...

 is an ancient, conserved component of the vertebrate sex-determining pathway that is also a key regulator of male development in flies and nematodes, and is found to be the key sex-determining factor in chickens.
This gene exhibits a gonad-specific and sexually dimorphic expression pattern, just like the related doublesex

Doublesex

Doublesex is a gene that is involved in the sex determination system of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.-Sex determination:...

gene in fruit flies. Defective testicular development and XY feminization occur when this gene is hemizygous

Zygosity

Zygosity refers to the similarity of alleles for a trait in an organism. If both alleles are the same, the organism is homozygous for the trait. If both alleles are different, the organism is heterozygous for that trait...

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External links

• http://www.dmrt1.umn.edu