A Chinese research team has discovered and named the first sex-determining gene in cyprinid fish, naming it "Pangu".

The reporter learned from Shanghai Ocean University that after more than ten years of exploratory research, the team of Professor Hu Wei from Shanghai Ocean University, in collaboration with the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other units, used the Yellow River carp, a representative species of the Cyprinidae family, as the subject and discovered the first major sex-determining gene in cyprinid fish. This is a new gene that has not been reported in any previous research. For this reason, the team named the new gene "Pangu," after the representative figure in ancient Chinese mythology who embodied male power and the primordial function of creating the world, implying its key function in determining male occurrence in fish and initiating the fate of male and female development.