DELETION of a single gene switches the sexual orientation of female mice, causing them to engage in sexual behaviour that is typical of males. Korean researchers found that deleting the FucM gene, which encodes an enzyme called fucose mutarotase, causes masculinization of the mouse brain, so that female mice lacking the gene avoid the advances of males and try to mate with other females instead. The findings probably have little relavence to human sexual orientation, however.
FucM is one of a family of enzymes involved in rearranging the atoms in small sugar molecules called monosaccharrides. In 2007, Chankyu Park of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and his colleagues reported that these rearrangements facilitate the incorporation of the monosaccharide fucose into cellular proteins. This process is one of numerous chemical modifications that are well known to regulate the function of proteins, but the biological significance of FucM function in mammals was until now unclear.
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