A young Drosophila duplicate gene plays essential roles in spermatogenesis by regulating several Y-linked male fertility genes.

ABSTRACT: Gene duplication is supposed to be the major source for genetic innovations. However, how a new duplicate gene acquires functions by integrating into a pathway and results in adaptively important phenotypes has remained largely unknown. Here, we investigated the biological roles and the underlying molecular mechanism of the young kep1 gene family in the Drosophila melanogaster species subgroup to understand the origin and evolution of new genes with new functions. Sequence and expression analysis demonstrates that one of the new duplicates, nsr (novel spermatogenesis regulator), exhibits positive selection signals and novel subcellular localization pattern. Targeted mutagenesis and whole-transcriptome sequencing analysis provide evidence that nsr is required for male reproduction associate

SUBMITTER: Ding Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3009665 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature