Genetic variation in mating-induced transcriptional responses in wild-type-derived strains of Drosophila melanogaster

Mating and transfer of male Sex Peptide causes a number of physiological changes in the female fly, including increased egg production, decreased immune function and shortened life span. A panel of wild-type- derived strains of Drosophila melanogaster was used to assay the transcriptional changes in response to mating. The data represents whole transcriptome profiling of female heads before (Virgin) and after mating (Mated). RNA-Seq data was generated for the F1-heterozygous progeny resulting from crosses between inbred wild-type- derived strains and a common tester strain w[1118]. Virgin females from naturally-derived strains were crossed to males of the w[1118] tester strain to generate hybrid virgin female progeny. Half of these hybrid females were assayed as virgins at age 10 days, whereas the other half were mated to w[1118] males at a ratio of 30 virgins to 10 males per vial for 24 hours at age 4 days, and then assayed at age 10 days. The analysis of RNA-Seq data revealed significant upregulation of hundreds of genes in response to mating across the various genotypes. Most of the upregulated genes are expressed in female fat body, indicating significant shifts in metabolic pathways of mated females. Interestingly, while the sets of differentially expressed genes were highly concordant across different populations and strains, considerable variation was observed in the average magnitudes of transcriptional changes. This dataset was also used to characterize natural genetic variation in selected transcriptional traits, including allele-specific expression, splicing patterns and RNA-editing.