Modulation of transcription burst amplitude underpins dosage compensation in the Drosophila embryo

ABSTRACT: Summary Dosage compensation, the balancing of X-linked gene expression between sexes and to the autosomes, is critical to an organism’s fitness and survival. In Drosophila, dosage compensation involves hypertranscription of the male X chromosome. Here, we use quantitative live imaging and modeling at single-cell resolution to study X chromosome dosage compensation in Drosophila. We show that the four X chromosome genes studied undergo transcriptional bursting in male and female embryos. Mechanistically, our data reveal that transcriptional upregulation of male X chromosome genes is primarily mediated by a higher RNA polymerase II initiation rate and burst amplitude across the expression domain. In contrast, burst frequency is spatially modulated in nuclei within the expression domain in re

SUBMITTER: Forbes Beadle L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10283159 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature