Gene expression during head development in a sexually monomorphic stalk-eyed fly

Stalk-eyed flies (family Diopsidae) are a model system for studying sexual selection due to the elongated and sexually dimorphic eye-stalks found in some species. These flies are of additional interest because their X chromosome is derived largely from an autosomal arm in other flies. To investigate how sex-biased expression arose on the novel X we compared gene expression between males and females using oligonucleotide microarrays and RNA from developing eyestalk tissue in the sexually monomorphic diopsid, Teleopsis quinqueguttata. We use probe sequence divergence to evaluate cross-species ascertainment bias and chromosome assignment to determine if sex linkage influence expression. Microarray analysis revealed sex-biased expression for only 1.9% of 3,748 genes expressed in eye-antennal imaginal discs. Analysis of probe sequences between species indicates that the lack of sex-biased expression is not due to ascertainment bias. These findings indicate that the the majority of sex-biased gene expression observed in developing heads of the dimorphic species, T. dalmanni, is causally related to development of dimorphic head shape. Two-condition experiment, female vs. male RNA using larval eye discs and adult heads for one species (Teleopsis quinqueguttata)