Liting Wang , Manman Li

Hainan Institute of Biotechnology, Haikou, 570206, Hainan, China
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2025, Vol. 15, No. 4   
Received: 01 Jun., 2025    Accepted: 15 Jul., 2025    Published: 02 Aug., 2025

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Grouper is a category of important value among marine economic fish. Due to its unique reproductive characteristics of hermaphrodite and female premature reproductive characteristics, gender can undergo two-way conversion in its life cycle. This phenomenon makes grouper an ideal model for studying the mechanisms of gender determination and differentiation of fish, but also poses challenges to aquaculture breeding. This study reviews the molecular basis and overall regulatory network of grouper gender determination mechanism, including sexual conversion in gender type and life cycle, reproductive gonadal histological characteristics, endocrine regulation of gender differentiation, identification and expression patterns of key gender-related genes, the role of non-coding RNA and epigenetics in gender regulation, the mechanism of action of sex hormones and their signaling pathways, the impact of external environmental factors on gender determination, and the method of constructing a gender regulatory network model in combination with multiomics data. We focused on the functions and interactions of genes that play a key role in the transition process of male and female (such as dmrt1 in male pathway and Foxl2 in female maintenance, etc.), and explained the role of epigenetic regulators such as miRNA and long-chain non-coding RNA in gender plasticity, as well as the role of pituitary-godal axis hormone signal in inducing gender reversal. Research on grouper gender determination not only helps to deeply understand the plasticity mechanism of gender differentiation in vertebrates, but also provides theoretical basis and practical guidance for controlling gender through molecular means in aquaculture and improving production efficiency.

Grouper; Gender differentiation; Non-coding RNA; Epigenetics; Sex hormones