Chinese researchers find androgens’ role in disease

Chinese researchers have explored the role of male sex hormones in shaping sex differences at the molecular and cellular levels, according to an article on their research published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

The research has laid a foundation for the potential targeting of the androgen pathway in the treatment of sex-biased diseases.

Sex differences are widespread across human development, physiological processes and diseases, making it important to characterize the impact of sex differences in such areas.

A team of researchers from the Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University and the Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, constructed a detailed data set of 17 different tissues from a mouse.

They used it to analyze sex differences in depth and investigated how androgens — male sex hormones — influence these differences through specific molecules and cell types. They also explored the implications of their findings on sex-biased diseases.

The researchers pinpointed the genes among the various tissues and cell types whose expression is sex-biased and directly influenced by androgens.

These genes have been highlighted as potential targets for precision medicine through the modulation of the androgen pathway.

The researchers also delved into the mechanisms by which androgens influence the differential representation of cell types across sexes in diverse tissues, particularly evident in immune cells.

By integrating their findings with data from the United Kingdom, the researchers discovered the most common risk genes for multiple sex-biased diseases.