Comparative transcriptomics between Drosophila mojavensis and D. arizonae reveals transgressive gene expression and underexpression of spermatogenesis-related genes in hybrid testes

Interspecific hybridization is a stressful condition that can lead to sterility and/or inviability through improper gene regulation in Drosophila species with a high divergence time. However, the extent of these abnormalities in hybrids of recently diverging species is not well known. Some studies have shown that in Drosophila, the mechanisms of postzygotic isolation may evolve more rapidly in males than in females and that the degree of viability and sterility is associated with the genetic distance between species. Here, we used transcriptomic comparisons between two Drosophila mojavensis subspecies and D. arizonae (repleta group, Drosophila) and identified greater differential gene expression in testes than in ovaries. We tested the hypothesis that the severity of the interspecies hybrid phenotype is associated with the degree of gene misregulation. We showed limited gene misregulation in fertile females and an increase in the amount of misregulation in males with more severe sterile phenotypes (motile vs. amotile sperm). In addition, for these hybrids, we identified candidate genes that were mostly associated with spermatogenesis dysfunction.