A Young Drosophila Duplicate Gene Plays Essential Roles in Spermatogenesis by Regulating Several Y-Linked Male Fertility Genes

A Young Drosophila Duplicate Gene Plays Essential Roles in Spermatogenesis by Regulating Several Y-Linked Male Fertility Genes: "Author Summary

Gene duplication has long been appreciated as a major source for new genes and new functions. Nevertheless, it is still a fascinating mystery how new duplicate genes are functionally integrated into the existing gene network and how they contribute to the novel functions of organisms at the pathway level. By studying the recently originated kep1 gene family in Drosophila melanogaster, we show that one of the young duplicate genes, nsr, has evolved important biological functions associated with male reproduction by regulating several essential fertility genes in the short evolutionary period after its birth. The evolutionary dynamics, biological roles, and the underlying molecular mechanism of nsr revealed in this study present a vivid and comprehensive example of how new genes acquire important biological functions and demonstrate that recently originated new genes can regulate pre-existing essential genes and create novel architectures of genetic pathways.

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