Amplicon sequencing of melanin biosynthesis genes of Drosophila melanogaster

In order to quantify cis-regulatory expression levels of melanin biosynthesis genes (ebony, tan, black, pale), parts of the genes were amplified from 1) cDNA from female head-less body of the F1 hybrid between Mel6 and each of the 20 DGRP (Drosophila melanogaster genetic reference panel, Mackay et al. 2012) strains, 2) genomic DNA from the F1 hybrid, and 3) cDNA from mixed RNA samples of the parental strains (Mel6 and each of the 20 DGRP strains). These amplicons were sequenced using Roche 454 GS junior sequencer and allele specific sequence reads were counted.