Research

A survey of ovary-, testis-, and soma-biased gene expression in Drosophila melanogaster adults

Michael Parisi¹ , Rachel Nuttall², Pamela Edwards¹, James Minor², Daniel Naiman³, Jining Lü¹, Michael Doctolero², Marina Vainer², Cathy Chan², James Malley⁴, Scott Eastman² and Brian Oliver¹

¹  Laboratory of Cellular and Developmental Biology, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA

²  Incyte Genomics, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA

³  Department of Mathematical Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA

⁴  Center for Information Technology, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA

author email corresponding author email

Genome Biology 2004, 5:R40doi:10.1186/gb-2004-5-6-r40

Published:	1 June 2004

Subject areas: Development, Genome studies, Bioinformatics

Abstract

Background

Sexual dimorphism results in the formation of two types of individuals with specialized reproductive roles and is most evident in the germ cells and gonads.

Results

We have undertaken a global analysis of transcription between the sexes using a 31,464 element FlyGEM microarray to determine what fraction of the genome shows sex-biased expression, what tissues express these genes, the predicted functions of these genes, and where these genes map onto the genome. Females and males (both with and without gonads), dissected testis and ovary, females and males with genetically ablated germlines, and sex-transformed flies were sampled.

Conclusions

Using any of a number of criteria, we find extensive sex-biased expression in adults. The majority of cases of sex differential gene expression are attributable to the germ cells. There is also a large class of genes with soma-biased expression. There is little germline-biased expression indicating that nearly all genes with germline expression also show sex-bias. Monte Carlo simulations show that some genes with sex-biased expression are non-randomly distributed in the genome.