Evidence of positive selection on sex biased genes in Drosophila melanogaster. Joseph R. Boland, Matthew E. B. Hansen, Craig E. Stanley, Jr., Rob J. Kulathinal. Department of Biology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.

   Darwinian selection can effectively drive the fixation of alleles, leading to increased genetic diversity between populations and species. Using a windows-based, bioinformatics analysis of whole genome sequences from 300+ individuals across natural populations of Drosophila (from the DPGP and DGRP projects), we evaluate the presence of positive Darwinian selection on sex-biased genes. RNA-seq data from males and females (from the modENCODE project) were used to identify loci that exhibit differential gene expression between the sexes. The presence of selection in local populations of D. melanogaster from North America, Africa, and Europe was assessed by identifying regions that have a high density of derived or fixed alleles in addition to a employing a variety of tests of neutrality. Positively selected genes were also characterized according to enriched ontological classes (GO) and tissue-specificity.