High-resolution single-cell analyses reveal evolutionary constraints and evolvability of sexual circuits in Drosophila

To understand how the cellular and molecular composition of neural circuits evolves to generate species-specific behaviors, we performed single-cell transcriptomic profiling of sexual circuits labeled by the sex determination gene doublesex (dsx) in adult males of four Drosophila species: D. melanogaster, D. yakuba, D. santomea, and D. teissieri. Using this dataset, we compared molecularly defined dsx⁺ cell types across species, quantified transcriptomic divergence within each cell type, and analyzed differences in gene expression. In addition, we characterized sex differences in dsx⁺ neurons by generating a single-cell transcriptomic dataset from adult females of D. melanogaster, enabling us to examine species divergence in the context of sexual dimorphism. These datasets are shared here for public access.