Affiliations: 1) Augustana University, Sioux Falls, SD; 2) Mount Marty University, Yankton, SD
Keywords: b. oogenesis; h. selection
Egg size is a highly polygenic trait that is closely related to fitness in Drosophila melanogaster. Cold-adapted D. melanogaster are known to produce larger eggs (Azevedo et al. 1996). The Miles lab previously identified 22 candidate genes influencing egg size based on whole-genome sequence data in multiple cold-adapted lines. Here we used semi-quantitative PCR to try and validate five of our 22 candidates (cappuccino, stathmin, dreadlocks, lilliputian, and gene CG31690) by comparing expression in cold-adapted inbred lines to the standard lab line OregonR. Expression differences in stathmin were found in a majority of the cold-adapted lines and appear to represent the absence of a splice variant. This is the first validation of a gene from our candidate list. We also report a significant upregulation in actin observed in half of our cold lines. We are currently following up on these results using qPCR.