Androgen receptors (AR) play important role in male secondary sex diferentiationin most of vertebrates. Spiggin in male three spiend stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus ) is under androgenic control and is used to build their nest and is produced by kidney cells .The ARβ is well characterize but ARα has not yet been characterized in stickleback.
A cDNA from male stickleback kidney cells was obtained and primers were designed for ARα and ARβ. The expression of ARα and ARβ was determined by using PCR and gel electrophoresis. More experiments have to be performed to clarify the characters of ARα and to understand the mechanism of regulation for both ARs in stickleback fish.