| Citation |
Andrews, J., Bouffard, G.G., Cheadle, C., Lu, J., Becker, K.G., Oliver, B. (2000). Gene discovery using computational and microarray analysis of transcription in the Drosophila melanogaster testis. Genome Res. 10(12): 2030--2043. |
| PubMed Abstract |
Identification and annotation of all the genes in the sequenced Drosophila genome is a work in progress. Wild-type testis
function requires many genes and is thus of potentially high value for the identification of transcription units. We therefore
undertook a survey of the repertoire of genes expressed in the Drosophila testis by computational and microarray analysis.
We generated 3141 high-quality testis expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Testis ESTs computationally collapsed into 1560 cDNA
set used for further analysis. Of those, 11% correspond to named genes, and 33% provide biological evidence for a predicted
gene. A surprising 47% fail to align with existing ESTs and 16% with predicted genes in the current genome release. EST frequency
and microarray expression profiles indicate that the testis mRNA population is highly complex and shows an extended range
of transcript abundance. Furthermore, >80% of the genes expressed in the testis showed onefold overexpression relative to
ovaries, or gonadectomized flies. Additionally, >3% showed more than threefold overexpression at p <0.05. Surprisingly, 22%
of the genes most highly overexpressed in testis match Drosophila genomic sequence, but not predicted genes. These data strongly
support the idea that sequencing additional cDNA libraries from defined tissues, such as testis, will be important tools for
refined annotation of the Drosophila genome. Additionally, these data suggest that the number of genes in Drosophila will
significantly exceed the conservative estimate of 13,601.
|
Home
Associated Information