The differential production of pheromones is a major barrier to mating between species in Drosophila. Individuals from morphologically similar sister species can produce different sets of cuticular hydrocarbons that allow potential mates to identify them as a suitable partner. In order to elucidate cis-regulatory mechanisms behind speciation of the sister species D. simulans and D. sechellia, we looked for allele-specific expression in hydrocarbon producing oenocytes from F1 hybrids of the two species. When we screened RNAi knockdowns of genes with tissue- and allele-specific expression, we found that one of them, the fatty acid elongase eloF, broadly affects both the complement of hydrocarbons present on females and the propensity of D. simulans males to mate with those females.
This code actually represents a re-analysis of the RNA-seq data in (PUBLICATION FORTHCOMING). Identification of eloF, among other genes, was made on the basis allele-specific and tissue-specific expression analyses performed in the Fall of 2015. Sober examination of the code in the spring of 2018 revealed a number of weaknesses in the analysis, which were corrected using more rigorous analysis.