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Speciation

New insights into hybrid sterility

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 10, page 820 (2009)Cite this article

Crosses between Drosophila simulans and Drosophila mauritiana flies result in F1 hybrid male sterility — caused by the Odysseus-site homeobox (Odsh) gene, which is expressed in fly testes. Bayes and Malik examined the localization of labelled forms of the two ODSH proteins (ODSHsim and ODSHmau) in D. simulans embryonic cell culture. They found that both ODSHsim and ODSHmau associated with heterochromatic repeat-rich regions of the D. simulans genome — the X pericentric region and the fourth chromosome — but, in addition, ODSHmau localized to the Y chromosome.

Using whole-mount immunohistochemistry to look at endogenous ODSH localization in D. simulans, Bayes and Malik found that ODSH expression was restricted to developing post-mitotic primary spermatocytes in the G2 phase of the cell cycle. In a sterile D. simulans–D. mauritiana introgression line, there was increased ODSH expression the late G2 spermatocytes, which is consistent with increased ODSH expression in the testes of these flies. By contrast, in a fertile introgression line and in D. mauritiana there was no ODSH expression in the testes, indicating that there are differences in ODSH levels and localization between Drosophila sibling species and between the sterile and fertile introgression lines.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Bayes, J. J. & Malik, H. S. Altered heterochromatin binding by a hybrid sterility protein in Drosophila sibling species. Science 22 Oct 2009 (doi:10.1126/science.1181756)

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Authors
  1. Meera Swami
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Swami, M. New insights into hybrid sterility. Nat Rev Genet 10, 820 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2705

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