Mediation of Drosophila autosomal dosage effects and compensation by network interactions

Gene dosage change is a mild perturbation that is a valuable tool for pathway reconstruction in Drosophila. While it is often assumed that reducing gene dose by half leads to two-fold less expression, there is partial autosomal dosage compensation in Drosophila, which may be mediated by feedback or buffering in expression networks.

We profiled expression in engineered flies where gene dose was reduced from two to one. While expression of most one-dose genes was reduced, the gene-specific dose responses were heterogeneous. Expression of two-dose genes that are first-degree neighbors of one-dose genes in novel network models also changed, and the directionality of change depended on the response of one-dose genes.

Our data indicate that expression perturbation propagates in network space. Autosomal compensation, or the lack thereof, is a gene-specific response, largely mediated by interactions with the rest of the transcriptome.