Project description:Purpose: House fly has a stable polygenic sex determination system. The male determining factor (Mdmd) is commonly found on the Y chromosome (Y^M) or the third chromosome (III^M). These proto-Y chromosomes are clinally distributed, with Y^M found most commonly in northern latitudes and III^M most commonly found at southern latitudes, hinting at possible genotype-by-temperature interactions that maintain the polymorphism. If this distribution is maintained by temperature-dependent selection pressures, we expect the fitness of III^M and Y^M flies to vary across developmental temperatures. These temperature-dependent effects could be driven by differential gene expression in III^M and Y^M males at different temperatures. Here, we performed RNA-seq experiments to study how genotype-by-temperature interactions affect gene expression in male houseflies carrying different proto-Y chromosomes. Methods: We raised a Y^M strain known as IsoCS and a III^M strain known as CSrab at 18°C and 29°C for two generations. We dissected 5 heads and 15-20 pairs of testes for each of three replicates of each genotype-by-temperature combination. We carried out RNA-seq on these tissues. Results: We identified 247 genes whose expression in testis and 50 genes whose expression in head depends on genotype-by-temperature interactions.
Project description:We performed RNA-seq experiments to examine the effects of house fly proto-Y chromosomes on gene expression. Two different Y^M chromosomes were investigated, and two different III^M chromosomes were investigated. One of the Y^M genotypes also was also heterozygous for third chromosomes that do not carry a male-determining locus to evaluate the effect of third chromosomes on gene expression independent of being a proto-Y.
Project description:We injected double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) into house fly embryos to knock down transformer (Md-tra), creating sex-reversed males that do not carry a Y chromosome. We also injected dsRNA trageting GFP as a sham treatment. We used RNA-seq to compare gene expression in the sex-reversed males with genotypic (normal) females (injected with dsRNA targeting GFP) and two types of genotypic (normal) males (injected with dsRNA targeting Md-tra or GFP). The expression profiles of sex-reversed males were similar to normal males. In contrast, about two thousand genes are differentially expressed between sex-reversed males and normal females, a similar magnitude as between normal males and females.
Project description:Temperature reduction has been one of the most robust environmental manipulations used to increase lifespan in invertebrates. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms leading to temperature-mediated lifespan extension remains largely unknown. Here, we evaluate how genes and metabolites are altered in response to changes in temperature in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Our data show that environmental temperature affects transcriptome much more than the metabolome. Intriguingly, the most affected candidate genes, the Turandot (tot) family genes, have direct effects on longevity in flies. Specifically, knockdown of tot expression at all temperatures leads to lifespan extension in a sex-specific fashion. Overall, our results imply that individual genes, specifically, the Turandot family of genes that may play a novel role in lifespan regulation in the fruit fly.