Ovaries and female phenotype in a girl with 46,XY karyotype and mutations in the CBX2 gene.

Abstract

A girl with a prenatal 46,XY karyotype was born with a completely normal female phenotype, including uterus and histologically normal ovaries. In mice with a similar phenotype, the ablation of M33, an ortholog of Drosophila Polycomb, causes male-to-female sex reversal. The analysis of the human homolog of M33, Chromobox homolog 2 (CBX2), in this girl revealed loss-of-function mutations that allowed us, by placing CBX2 upstream of SRY, to add an additional component to the still incomplete cascade of human sex development.