Abdominal-B is essential for proper sexually dimorphic development of the Drosophila gonad

Sexual dimorphism requires the integration of positional information in the embryo with the sex determination pathway. Homeotic genes are a major source of positional information responsible for patterning along the anterior-posterior axis in embryonic development, and are likely to play a critical role in sexual dimorphism. Here, we investigate the role of homeotic genes in the sexually dimorphic development of the gonad in Drosophila. We have found that Abdominal-B (ABD-B) is expressed in a sexually dimorphic manner in the embryonic gonad. Furthermore, Abd-B is necessary and sufficient for specification of a sexually dimorphic cell type, the male-specific somatic gonadal precursors (msSGPs). In Abd-B mutants, the msSGPs are not specified and male gonads now resemble female gonads with respect to these cells. Ectopic expression of Abd-B is sufficient to induce formation of extra msSGPs in additional segments of the embryo. Abd-B works together with abdominal-A to pattern the non-sexually dimorphic somatic gonad in both sexes, while Abd-B alone specifies the msSGPs. Our results indicate that Abd-B acts at multiple levels to regulate gonad development and that Abd-B class homeotic genes are conserved factors in establishing gonad sexual dimorphism in diverse species.