098 -- Evolutionary Genomics of Meiotic Drive in Teleopsis. whitei

Meiotic drive violates the fundamental law of segregation, changing the allele inheritance pattern from 50% to 100%. An extreme sex-ratio meiotic drive (SR) trait is an X-linked selfish genetic element that causes the carrier males to produce mostly female offspring. The presence of this trait has been identified in two stalk-eyed fly species; Teleopsis whitei and Teleopsis dalmanni. Recent research suggests that despite T. whitei’s and T. dalmanni’s close evolutionary relationship, the mechanism of the SR trait might occur differently. Research also suggests there are fewer genomic differences between standard (ST) and SR T. whiteimales. Together, these findings suggest that the SR trait has independently evolved over time. Through bioinformatic methods and differential expression (Desq2) analyses in R (R 4.1.3 binary for macOS), T. whitei whole genome and RNA sequence data were analyzed to identify the differential gene coverage and expression between ST and SR males. A total of 16 RNA genes were determined to be significantly differentially expressed (p<0.05) for the SR trait. The location and function of these T. whitei genes were then determined based on prior T. dalmanni data. To confirm and extend these preliminary findings, 14 additional T. whitei genomic data sets are being aligned to determine what gene(s) and mutation(s) may be responsible for meiotic drive in T. whitei; and whether these gene(s) are the same in T. dalmanni. These results will elucidate whether the SR trait in T. whitei has independently evolved.