Changing 'just one DNA letter' in female mice triggers growth of male genitalia

An illustration of a damaged strand of DNA against a black background. The damage can be shown in red. .

Changing just one "letter" in the DNA of female mouse embryos triggers the development of male genitalia and testes, scientists have found.

"This is a remarkable finding because such a tiny change — just one DNA letter out of ~2.8 billion — was enough to produce a dramatic developmental outcome," senior study author Nitzan Gonen, a senior investigator at Bar-Ilan University in Israel who studies how sex is determined during embryonic development, said in a statement.