Abstract:

In mammals and humans, reproductive capacity is attained at puberty as the end-point of a complex series of developmental and neuroendocrine events that lead to true sexual maturity. As for humans, sexual precocity looks like a pathologic status. While for some animals, sexual precocity may be a valuable quantitative character. For some species, the character of sexual precocity was developed in the evolutionary process and stably transmitted to future generations. Sexual precocity is a complex character determined by polygenes. This review introduced the association between KiSS-1, GPR54, LHR, FSHR, CYP, ER, TGFa, IGF-Ⅰ, GNAS1, HSD3B2, SHBG, VDR genes and sexual precocity in mammals.