Data from: Extensive sex-specific nonadditivity of gene expression in Drosophila melanogaster

Assessment of the degree to which gene expression is additive and heritable has important implications for understanding the maintenance of variation, adaptation, phenotypic divergence, and the mapping of genotype onto phenotype. We used whole-genome transcript profiling using Agilent long-oligonucleotide microarrays representing 12,017 genes to demonstrate that gene transcription is pervasively nonadditive in Drosophila melanogaster. Comparison of adults of two isogenic lines and their reciprocal F1 hybrids revealed 5820 genes as significantly different between at least two of the four genotypes in either males or females or across both sexes. Strikingly, while 25% of all genes differ between the two parents, 33% differ between both F1's and the parents, averaged across sexes. However, only 5% of genes show overdominance, suggesting that heterosis for expression is rare.

评估基因表达的加性与可遗传程度，对于理解变异维持、适应性演化、表型分化以及基因型-表型映射机制均具有重要意义。本研究采用代表12017个基因的Agilent长寡核苷酸微阵列开展全基因组转录组分析，证实黑腹果蝇（Drosophila melanogaster）的基因转录普遍存在非加性特征。对两个同基因系（isogenic lines）及其正反交F1杂种（reciprocal F1 hybrids）的成虫进行比较分析后发现，在雄性、雌性或两性中，共5820个基因在四种基因型中至少两种之间存在显著表达差异。值得注意的是，尽管所有基因中有25%在两个亲本间存在表达差异，但在合并两性数据后，有33%的基因在两种F1杂种与亲本间均存在表达差异。然而仅有5%的基因表现出超显性（overdominance）特征，这表明表达层面的杂种优势（heterosis）较为罕见。