Whether or not non-coding RNA genes play a significant role in reproductive biology and evolution of sex determination systems is an important problem. We report identification of sex-related non-coding RNA (ncRNA) genes and an analysis of ncRNAs expression patterns among Drosophila species. We detected 12 candidate ncRNAs that are expressed in the gonads of D. melanogaster by an integrative approach of RT-PCR and computational analysis of sequence conservation across species. We ex-perimentally analyzed these ncRNA gene transcripts in head, ovary and testis of closely related species D. simulans, D. yakuba,D. pseudoobscura and D. virilis. We observed that the occurrence and extent of expression of most ncRNA fragments among closely related species show significant divergence.
YANG YongFeiLI ZhengFAN QiChangLONG ManYuanZHANG WenXia
