We recently showed that sex-specific wiring patterns are the result of sex-specific synaptic pruning events. Synapse pruning is a widely used mechanism to shape neuronal circuits during development, but it has not been previously implicated in the context of generating sex-specific neuronal circuitry. We observed striking patterns of cellular autonomy of the synaptic pruning events and found pruning to be regulated by differential expression of sex-specific transcription factors. We are interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying synapse elimination, which function in a highly local and sex-specific manner
Sex-specific synapse pruning during development