Extensive tissue-specific, circadian molecular variation in a Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel

We report a large-scale transcriptomic analysis of several tissues of a reference Drosophila melanogaster strain as well as 141 Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel (DGRP) lines at high temporal resolution. Comprehensive data analysis has identified thousands of genes under clock- and tissue-specific control. By using a molecular time table approach, we uncovered that >20% of probed DGRP lines exhibit aberrant circadian expression, and the genetic dissection of one line (DGRP-796) revelled disrupted circadian gene expression in all analysed tissues, revealing a novel deletion in the cry gene. Together, this study revealed extensive variation in tissue-specific circadian expression, which acts upon tissue-specific regulatory networks to generate local oscillations in gene expression. Moreover, the many other lines identified here can be now used to better understand the mechanisms underlying the molecular clock, from tissue-specific to more central mechanisms. The study consists from 3 datasets: 1) reference gene expression time series by sampling the brain, gut, Malpighian ttubules and fat body of a reference line (w1118 strain) every 2h over 48h in triplicates, 2) single observationss (one time point) of brains, guts and fat bodies of 141 DGRP strains 3) time series for DGRP-796 collected every 2h over 48h in duplicates, brain and gut