ArticleGenetics2010
Evolution of the Drosophila feminizing switch gene Sex-lethal.
Article in Genetics, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed.
- Neuronal protein Sex-lethal modulates tRNA synthesis via the polymerase III subunit Polr3E in male Drosophila neurons.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- A framework for identifying transcript orthologs: the evolution of sex bias in alternative transcript structure in Drosophila.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Differential neuronal survival defines a novel axis of sexual dimorphism in the Drosophila brain.Cell genomics · 2026Article
- Splicing to keep splicing: A feedback system for cellular homeostasis and state transition.Clinical and translational medicine · 2025Review
- Theme and variation in the evolution of insect sex determination.Journal of experimental zoology. Part B, Molecular and developmental evolution · 2023Review
- Evolution of sexual development and sexual dimorphism in insects.Current opinion in genetics & development · 2021Review
- InSexBase: an annotated genomic resource of sex chromosomes and sex-biased genes in insects.Database : the journal of biological databases and curation · 2021Article
- Evidence That Runt Acts as a Counter-Repressor of Groucho DuringG3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2020Article
- Drosophila Sister-of-Sex-lethal reinforces a male-specific gene expression pattern by controlling Sex-lethal alternative splicing.Nucleic acids research · 2019Article
- Repeated Evolution of Asexuality Involves Convergent Gene Expression Changes.Molecular biology and evolution · 2019Article
- A Developmental Program Truncates Long Transcripts to Temporally Regulate Cell Signaling.Developmental cell · 2018Article
- Article
- Specific RNP capture with antisense LNA/DNA mixmers.RNA (New York, N.Y.) · 2017Article
- Promiscuity in post-transcriptional control of gene expression: Drosophila sex-lethal and its regulatory partnerships.FEBS letters · 2017Review
- Article
- Sex Determination, Sex Chromosomes, and Karyotype Evolution in Insects.The Journal of heredity · 2017Article
- The comparative study of five sex-determining proteins across insects unveils high rates of evolution at basal components of the sex determination cascade.Development genes and evolution · 2015Article
- Sex determination: why so many ways of doing it?PLoS biology · 2014Review
- Evolution of the sex-lethal gene in insects and origin of the sex-determination system in Drosophila.Journal of molecular evolution · 2014Article
- Drosophila switch gene Sex-lethal can bypass its switch-gene target transformer to regulate aspects of female behavior.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
In Drosophila melanogaster, the gene Sex-lethal (Sxl) controls all aspects of female development. Since melanogaster males lacking Sxl appear wild type, Sxl would seem to be functionally female specific. Nevertheless, in insects as diverse as honeybees and houseflies, Sxl seems not to determine sex or to be functionally female specific. Here we describe three lines of work that address the questions of how, when, and even whether the ancestor of melanogaster Sxl ever shed its non-female-specific functions. First, to test the hypothesis that the birth of Sxl's closest paralog allowed Sxl to lose essential ancestral non-female-specific functions, we determined the CG3056 null phenotype. That phenotype failed to support this hypothesis. Second, to define when Sxl might have lost ancestral non-female-specific functions, we isolated and characterized Sxl mutations in D. virilis, a species distant from melanogaster and notable for the large amount of Sxl protein expression in males. We found no change in Sxl regulation or functioning in the 40+ MY since these two species diverged. Finally, we discovered conserved non-sex-specific Sxl mRNAs containing a previously unknown, potentially translation-initiating exon, and we identified a conserved open reading frame starting in Sxl male-specific exon 3. We conclude that Drosophila Sxl may appear functionally female specific not because it lost non-female-specific functions, but because those functions are nonessential in the laboratory. The potential evolutionary relevance of these nonessential functions is discussed.
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