The Transcriptome Level Difference Between Fertile And Sterile Drosophila Lines

Our study focuses on the reproductive isolation which is the core issue in evolutionary biology. We obtained the transcriptome of the fertile and sterile lines of Drosophila through RNA-seq technology, and compared the expression level to reveal the causes of reproductive isolation.We sequenced the transcriptome of the fertile line (99F) and sterile line (193S), the difference between the two lines is only3Kb genome sequence. For the mRNA, through variance analysis, there are about413differentially expressed genes between99F and193S. These genes are involved in Adult cuticle protein (Acp) family, the expression of ribosome formation, Hsp family proteins and so on. These key genes play an important role in spermatogenesis and the subsequent impact on the reproductive process. In the study of pathways, such as the Notch signaling pathway, Ribosome synthesis and so on are also differential between99F and193S.Because the significant physiological differences between strains, we analyzed whether the level of transcription regulation have great changes. This study also analyzed the differential expression of microRNAs and TF in99F and193S.30microRNAs and21TF expressed significantly different between99F and193S. We studied the correlation of expression level between regulation factors and target genes. Results showed that, although microRNAs are expressed differentially between99F and193S, the expression level of their targets is similar; and as another regulatory factor TF, the expression level of their targets is more differential than microRNAs. The results show that, microRNAs do not have significant correlation with the target genes expression, and could maintain the stable level of genes expression in the genes network. But the TF regulatory factors would give direct impact on the genes expression.