Journal of Genomics 2014, Vol.

Ivyspring
International Publisher

104

Journal of Genomics
2014; 2: 104-117. doi: 10.7150/jgen.8178

Review

Meiotic Sex Chromosome Inactivation in Drosophila

Maria D. Vibranovski
Departamento de Gentica e Biologia Evolutiva, Instituto de Biocincias, Universidade de So Paulo, So Paulo, Brazil 05508.
Corresponding author: Departamento de Gentica e Biologia Evolutiva, Instituto de Biocincias, Universidade de So Paulo, So Paulo,
Brazil 05508.
Ivyspring International Publisher. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Reproduction is permitted for personal, noncommercial use, provided that the article is in whole, unmodified, and properly cited.

Published: 2014.06.01

Abstract
In several different taxa, there is indubitable evidence of transcriptional silencing of the X and Y
chromosomes in male meiotic cells of spermatogenesis. However, the so called meiotic sex
chromosome inactivation (MSCI) has been recently a hot bed for debate in Drosophila melanogaster. This review covers cytological and genetic observations, data from transgenic constructs
with testis-specific promoters, global expression profiles obtained from mutant, wild-type, larvae
and adult testes as well as from cells of different stages of spermatogenesis. There is no dispute on
that D. melanogaster spermatogenesis presents a down-regulation of X chromosome that does not
result from the lack of dosage compensation. However, the issue is currently focused on the level
of reduction of X-linked expression, the precise time it occurs and how many genes are affected.
The deep examination of data and experiments in this review exposes the limitations intrinsic to
the methods of studying MSCI in D. melanogaster. The current methods do not allow us to affirm
anything else than the X chromosome down-regulation in meiosis (MSCI). Therefore, conclusion
about level, degree or precise timing is inadequate until new approaches are implemented to know
the details of MSCI or other processes involved for D. melanogaster model.
Key words: down-regulation, X chromosome, spermatogenesis, testis, male germline.

Introduction
Meiotic sex chromosome inactivation (MSCI) is
the early transcriptional silencing of the X and Y
chromosomes that occurs in the male germline meiotic phase [1-3]. MSCI has been observed in a vast
range of taxonomic groups such as mammals, nematodes and grasshoppers [4-6]. In mice, the organism
where MSCI has been best characterized, cytological
evidence shows that the X and Y chromosomes are
compartmentalized in a nuclear subdomain of pachytene cells [4,7]. At this stage, extensive chromatin
modifications occur on the sex-chromosome that results in significant down-regulation of the X-linked
expression [8-10].
Several hypotheses have been proposed for the
evolution of MSCI. In one hypothesis, MSCI could
have evolved to prevent detrimental products from

the
recombination
of
non-homologous
sex-chromosomes such as those generate in ectopic
changes and double strand breaks [3]. Recently,
studies have shown that MSCI is a special example of
a general mechanism in which unpaired chromosomes are silenced [11-13]. The general phenomenon,
called meiotic silencing of unsynapsed chromatin
(MSUC), has been observed in mouse and worms and
may avoid the spread of aneuploidy [11-13]. However, there is no recombination by crossing over in D.
melanogaster male meiosis [14] and therefore no need
to evolve special mechanisms to avoid harmful recombination of unsynapsed chromosomes [3]. Therefore, for several years, it has been thought that MSCI
probably evolved in the Drosophila genus for other
reasons [3]. However, two recently published data

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revived the idea that MSCI in Drosophila is connect to
the evolution of mechanisms that avoid harmful recombination. First, not all species in the genus lack
male recombination, as crossing over does occur in
males of D. ananassae from natural populations [15].
Second, it is possible that the dot chromosome of D.
melanogaster was ancestrally a differentiated X chromosome that still bears sequence and architectural
features used in sex chromosome-specific regulatory
mechanisms, including in meiosis [16]. Similar, if the
chiasmatic status has been lost in D. melanogaster, it is
possible that meiotic down-regulation remains among
X-linked genes [3].
Another hypothesis for the evolution of MSCI,
the drive hypothesis, suggests that the meiotic silencing of the X chromosome is advantageous because
it prevents meiotic expression of sex-ratio distorters
which are observed in different taxa but are very
frequently found in the Drosophila genus [17]. Finally,
the sexual antagonism and X inactivation (SAXI) hypothesis proposes that MSCI is driven by sexual antagonistic effects of X-linked genes [18]. X chromosomes are expected to be feminized, in terms of gene
content, because they spend more evolutionary time
in females than in males and should therefore accumulate genes which are beneficial for females [18, 19].
If female-beneficial genes are detrimental to males, it
may be advantageous to reduce or eliminate their
expression in the late stages of spermatogenesis [18].
MSCI may explain several puzzling observations
made in recent genome evolution studies. In Drosophila and mammals, there is an excess of new genes on
the autosomes which were formed by duplication of
X-linked genes [20-24]. These new genes often acquire
male expression and male-related functions [20-24]. In
addition, the X chromosome is generally depleted of
genes expressed more highly in testis than ovary, that
is testis-biased genes [25-27]. MSCI, among other hypotheses, has been proposed as explanation for the
evolution of both observations as testis-expressed
genes located in the autosomes would still be expressed during the inactivation of the X chromosome
[1,21]. Indeed, such compensatory meiotic expression
has been found for autosomal genes formed by
RNA-based duplication of X-linked genes (retrogenes) in mammals and Drosophila [28, 29].
The existence of MSCI in D. melanogaster was
proposed in the 1970s based on observations of major
male sterility in flies with X autosome translocations
[1]. Advances from genomics and transcriptomics
coupled with new cell biological techniques have allowed scientists to initiate and continue investigations
into the existence and evolutionary impact of MSCI in
many taxa, including D. melanogaster [e.g., 28-32].

105
However, recent conflicting results have placed MSCI
in Drosophila at the center of a debate [29-31, 33-39].
Although there is evidence of down-regulation of the
X chromosome, the magnitude and the exact timing of
its occurrence during spermatogenesis put in doubt if
the phenomenon is as strong in D. melanogaster as it is
in mammals or if X chromosome regulation is governed by another, previously undescribed mechanism. Here I revisit all current available data in favor
and against the existence of MSCI in D. melanogaster in
order to evaluate these data related to the debate and
stimulate projects and ideas for its resolution.

Genetic and Cytological Observations of

MSCI in Drosophila
In 1972, Lifschytz and Lindsley [1] published a
seminal work in which they assembled genetic and
cytological observations to propose the hypothesis
that X inactivation is a universal requirement for
proper spermatogenesis in all male-heterogametic
organisms. They based this conclusion on the genetic
observations that D. melanogaster males with reciprocal translocations between X chromosomes and autosomes were often sterile whereas males with translocations between autosomes are generally fertile [1].
This sterility phenotype is dominant as fertility was
not restored by the addition of segments including the
translocation breakpoints and their neighboring genes
[1]. This observation suggested that the translocations
affected the flys biology at the chromosomal level
and that the X chromosome and the autosomes should
be asynchronously controlled in order for normal
spermatogenesis to occur [1]. Although translocations
between the X chromosome and chromosome 2 or 3
cause sterility, translocations between the X and
chromosome 4 are male fertile [1]. These observations
led Lifschytz and Lindsley [1] to suggest that chromosomes X and 4 activities are relatively in phase
during spermatogenesis four decades ago, before the
discovery that it is possible that the dot chromosome
was ancestrally a differentiated X chromosome [16].
Lifschytz and Lindsleys [1] cytological evidence
for the importance of MSCI came from Coopers [40]
and from their own observations of the meiotic condensation of the sex chromosomes before the autosomes during normal D. pseudoobscura spermatogenesis and in D. melanogaster X/0 males [1]. However,
even Cooper [40] noted that his description should
be regarded as wholly tentative first because his
work only synthesized and reinterpreted others work
and second because of the prominent difficulties in
doing cytological studies in D. melanogaster meiotic
phase. Cytological evidence of MSCI in Drosophila has
been disputed since then. Although all studies agree
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that sex chromosome condensation begins earlier than
the condensation of autosomes in spermatocytes (the
cell type in which meiosis occurs), there are periods
during meiosis that the X chromosome is decondensed and other periods in which no differential
condensation between chromosomes is recognized
[1,3, 40,41].
Indeed, McKee and Handel [3] specifically
claimed that there is no MSCI in Drosophila based on
the arguments that i) the cytological evidence was
inconclusive [1, 3, 40, 41] and ii) D. melanogaster male
meiosis is achiasmatic, i.e. does not involve crossing
over [14]. The authors had proposed the hypothesis
that MSCI evolved in different taxa to prevent physical DNA damage originating from meiotic recombination of non-homologous sex-chromosomes [3]. The
connection between the lack of male meiotic recombination and supposed lack of MSCI in D. melanogaster
would fit the predictions of their hypothesis [3].
However, today it is known that lack of meiotic recombination in males is not extended to the entire
genus [15].
The differential distribution of histone acetylation on the X chromosome and autosomes provides
another type of cytological indirect support for MSCI
in Drosophila [42]. If X inactivation occurs, the X
chromatin may be enriched with histone H4 underacetylated at all residues except lysine 12 (H4Ac12)
which are normally found in heterochromatin of somatic cells. Analyses of those histones in late spermatocytes showed that they are not labeling autosomes, but might be labeling the X-Y cluster in Figure
6B from [43].
Surprisingly, despite all contrasting and disputing data, it has been several years since anyone has
published cytological data on MSCI. It might be that
Drosophila male germline staining and chromosomal
topology measurement were not feasible [40]. However, new advances in visualization techniques, if
applied to the study of MSCI, may resolve this issue.

Expression Analyses of Transgenic Constructs

In the absence of continued cytological studies of
MSCI, several groups have used genetic evidence to
assess its presence and impacts on Drosophila genome
evolution. The transcriptional silencing expected by
meiotic sex chromosomal inactivation can be observed also by the lack of or significant reduction of
expression of X-linked genes in male meiosis. Transgenic constructions combining reporter genes with a
testis-specific promoter have been proven to be quite
useful in testing the MSCI hypothesis [30,38,39,44].
These studies are based on the assumption that if the

106
X chromosome is inactivated during male meiosis,
reporter gene expression levels will be lower when
the reporters are inserted in the X chromosome compared to those inserted in the autosomes (Figure 1)
[30,44]. First support to the MSCI hypothesis using
this approach came from an early study in which the
expression of constructs with a modified form of
-tubulin driven by a testis-specific promoter were
consistent with the early cessation of X chromosomal
expression in D. melanogaster spermatogenesis [44].
Analysis of protein abundance in electrophoresis gels
to estimate gene expression revealed that X-linked
insertions produced much less protein than autosomal ones, as expected by the X inactivation hypothesis
[44].
Recently, the expression profile of a reporter
gene driven by the promoter of the testis-specific ocnus (ocn) gene [45] provided a more rigorous experimental test for MSCI [30]. In contrast to earlier
-tubulin experiments [44], this study measured both
transcript and protein abundances for a large number
of independent insertions, allowing for statistical
analysis of the effects, or lack of effects, of MSCI in D.
melanogaster. In addition, the transgene was also inserted within a sequence that shields the impact of
external transcription regulators avoiding any effect
from repressors that could be preferentially bound to
the X chromosome [30].
A major advantage of the construct insertion
approach is that the results are conservative with respect to dosage compensations effects (Figure 1).
Dosage compensation in Drosophila is achieved by
hypertranscription of the X chromosome in males
[46]. Therefore, the reduced expression found for
X-linked insertions could be a result of the lack of
dosage compensation. However, autosomal insertions
were made heterozygous, i.e. in one copy [30]. Therefore, if the X chromosome is not hypertranscribed,
expressions of single copy autosomal and X-linked
insertions are expected to be equal. Alternatively, any
level of X chromosome hypertranscription would lead
to a higher expression of the single copy X-linked insertions. None of the outcomes involving dosage
compensation explain the observed results - lower
expression of transgenes inserted in the X chromosome - which are consistent with X inactivation [30].
Some drawbacks of the transgenic experimental
approach have been pointed out, including the fact
that the observations were restricted to a single promoter and the transgene insertions do not cover the
entire X chromosome [29,34]. However, using modifications of the ocn transgenic approach the same
group has refuted those shortcomings one by one [38,
39]. First, a fine-scale map of the X inactivation in the
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male germline was generated by the insertion of 112
independent insertions of the same construct [38].
Finding consistent down-regulation of widespread
X-linked insertions excluded the possibility that some
large chromosomal neighborhoods of the X chromosome escape inactivation [38]. Second, three other
promoters of X-linked testis-expressed genes were
analyzed [39]. The experiments not only prove that
the germline down-regulation of X-linked insertions
is pertinent to promoters other than ocn, but also
shows that the increased expression associated to the
relocation to autosomes occurs even for genes that are
originally located on the X chromosome and therefore
adapted to its local chromosomal environment [39].
In addition, the same study further tested the
possibility that the reduction of X-linked expression
arises from an intrinsic property of their transformations by profiling the expression of a somatic
transgene, mini-white, with expression driven by tes-

107
tis-specific promoters [39]. X-linked mini-white insertions were found to be more highly expressed in
males than autosomal heterozygous insertions, consistent with patterns of dosage compensation (Figure
1).
It is important to note that although expression
level and protein abundance measurements were
done with the entire testis, the general
down-regulation observed from the X-linked insertions should be applied to the meiotic and
post-meiotic phases in males instead of the whole
spermatogenesis process [30,39]. Most of the report
genes are not expressed or are expressed in a very low
level in the mitotic phase of testis as shown in the in
situ hybridizations excluding the effects of mitotic
regulation of the X chromosome [30,39]. Taken together, all those careful experiments using transgenic
construct provide compelling evidence in favor of the
MSCI hypothesis.

Figure 1. Detecting MSCI using transgenic constructs and random insertions. Autosomal insertions were made heterozygous
in order to disentangle the effects of MSCI and dosage compensation [30]. As only one homolog of the autosome contains the insertion,
if there is MSCI, the X-linked inserts will show relatively lower expression. In the case of lack of dosage compensation, X-linked and
autosomal inserts will not show differential expression. For any level of dosage compensation (hypertranscription), the X-linked insertions
will show higher expression than autosomal ones as the latter is presented in only one copy. The arrows point for the insertions (gray
squares). Expression of X-linked and autosomal insertions are shown in white and black respectively.

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Global Expression Analyses of Spermatogenesis

MSCI has been also investigated by microarray
global gene expression analysis of spermatogenesis
[29]. D. melanogaster spermatogenesis occurs in developmental stages - mitotic, meiotic and pos-meiotic
that are progressively distributed within an adult
testis [40,47]. Apical regions contain the first gonial
stem cells and subsequently produced mitotic cells
while distal regions contain the packed nuclear sperm
heads [47]. A detailed schematic diagram describing
the different phases of Drosophila spermatogenesis
and how they are arrayed in the Drosophila testis can
be found in Figure 2 in [47].
The dissection of three distinct regions of the
testis which were respectively enriched with mitotic,
meiotic and post-meiotic cells composed the first
spermatogenic-stage-specific transcriptome of D.
melanogaster [29]. Comparison of X chromosome and
autosome expression under a Bayesian framework
revealed a significant, although small (around 10%),
reduction of X-linked gene expression in meiosis, in
agreement with signal of MSCI [29]. The same study
also evaluated the evolutionary consequences of X
down-regulation by correlating it with the frequent
relocation of retrogenes to the autosomes [29], as observed previously in [21, 24].
However, Meiklejohn et al. [33] revisited the
data of the stage-specific spermatogenic transcriptome [29]; with additional experiments, they suggested contrary conclusions about MSCI. Briefly, they
found no evidence for X-linked genes expression reduction in meiotic cells, whereas mitotic germline
cells seem to lack dosage compensation [33]. They also
analyzed the expression of testis-specific ocnus
transgenes [30] finding lower expression of X-linked
inserts in both mitotic and meiotic cells [33]. Since
transgenic insertions are heterozygous and therefore
their expression reduction is incompatible with lack of
dosage compensation, the authors hypothesized that
another unrecognized mechanism regulates X chromosome expression during spermatogenesis [33].
These conflicting results raised considerable debate
over MSCI in D. melanogaster [33, 34, 36; for criticism,
see 29 and 35]. In the following, I describe the different major opinions and discuss how these arguments
were based on a lack of understanding of current experimental limitations and even on erroneous interpretation of previous experimental data for the study
of MSCI.

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Mitotic Purity
Meiklejohn et al. [33] major point against MSCI
in Drosophila is that mitotic samples dissected in the
stagespecific spermatogenic transcriptome [29] already show lower expression levels of X-linked genes
when compared to autosomal ones. If levels of expression between autosomes and X chromosome are
not equal so early in spermatogenesis, the pattern
should not be a result of MSCI. However, Meiklejohn
et al. [33] did not take into account the level of mitotic
purity in mitotic samples, i.e. the level of contamination with meiotic cells in this sample.
In order to test X inactivation by comparing the
transcriptome of different spermatogenic stages it is
important to understand D. melanogaster testis cell
biology and the basis of cell dissections. Due to coiled
form of testes and how cells at different spermatogenic stages are distributed and located inside it, the
full separation of mitotic and meiotic cells is unlikely.
From Figure 1 in Vibranovski et al. [29], partially reproduced and adapted here in Figure 2B, one can easily identify that the mitotic sample is not pure; i.e.
does not contain just mitotic cells. Based on the differential DNA staining for diploid and haploid cells
(Figure 2B), mitotic samples clearly contain a significant number of meiotic cells [29]. Mitotic purity, defined as the percentage of mitotic cells in the mitotic
sample, is approximately 30%. Note that there is always an experimental variation within the apical tip
size excised from the whole testis.
Dissection of three distinct testis regions gave
samples that were enriched, not specified, with a certain cell type [29]. Due to the limit of technology
available, the intention in this experiment was to increase the proportion of, for instance, the mitotic cells
in the sample when compared to the whole testis.
Such a procedure does not imply that the mitotic cell
type would be the only type, or even the major type in
the sample [29]. Factually neglecting such limitation
has had a negative impact for drawing an incorrect
conclusion about MSCI in [33]. On one hand, if no
difference between mitotic and meiotic X chromosome expression is observed, concluding that there is
no MSCI in D. melanogaster is precipitous as the presence of meiotic cells in mitotic sample likely diffuse
the MSCI signal. On the other hand, when detecting
statistically significant down-regulation of the X
chromosome as in [29], it should be taken as evidence
of MSCI but no further interpretation whether MSCI
is global, relatively weak or not severe should be
reached, because of the very property of the data created by available techniques.

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109

Figure 2. Mitotic purity. Percentage of mitotic cells contained in D. melanogaster apical tips, the mitotic sample. A. Scheme of wild-type
testis being dissected in a PBS drop. Left panel: apical tip is cut off from testes using 0.25mm diameter insect pins. Right panel: picture of
an apical tip detached from the remaining testis. B. Adapted from Figure 1 in [29]: apical tip with indirect immunofluorescence staining
alpha-tubulin and DNA in red and green, respectively. Left panel: meiotic cells shown by the filled circles are identified as those greater in
size and contained less bright DNA staining correspond to haploid cells. Right panel: the same apical tip shown on the left for green
immunofluorescence panel only. Mitotic cells shown by the open circles were identified as those containing brighter DNA staining, the
diploid ones. Mitotic purity was estimated by the ratio between the number of mitotic cells and total number of cells [29].

Mitotic Dosage Compensation

Meiklejohn et al. [33] also took advantage of the
spermatogenic-stage-specific transcriptome of D.
melanogaster to investigate germline dosage compensation (see more details in Expression Analyses of Mutants of Early Development Arrest). The authors tested
whether the X chromosome has the same expression
level as the autosomes by comparing the expression of
genes linked to the X and to the autosomes in the mitotic sample. According to Meiklejohn et al. [33], the
mitotic sample presents a more homogenous cell
population than the meiotic cell population and is
therefore free from any regulatory phenomena specific to meiosis. Dosage compensation was assessed
by the absolute difference in expression between the X

chromosome and autosomes in mitotic cells collected

from the apical tips (Figure 2B). Autosomal genes
showed significantly higher median expression than
the X-linked genes, which corresponds to the expression differences expected in the absence of dosage
compensation (adapted in Table 1 here) [33].
However, the techniques for detecting the effects
of MSCI were designed, based on the specific tissue
structure of testis that does not allow complete separation by dissection of cells in different spermatogenesis stages, in a way that the mitotic sample was
mixed up with meiotic cells (Figure 2). Therefore, a
more likely scenario is that the lower expression of the
X chromosome in mitotic sample was a result of
MSCI. The difficulty in obtaining pure mitotic cell
samples makes the use of the mitotic sample absolute
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expression to test dosage compensation difficult to
interpret [33]. Testing the existence of MSCI by comparing expression between mitotic and meiotic samples, however, is effective as it is based on the relative
reduction of chromosomal expression between phases
[29]. Therefore, even if mitotic samples already show
lower expression of the X chromosomes, the relative
reduction in meiosis suggests the existence of MSCI.
Note in Table 1 that the expression differences between autosomes and the X chromosome seems to be
greater in meiotic than in mitotic samples although
statistical analyses should be implemented (see below). Unfortunately, all these technique specifics were
factually ignored when Meiklejohn et al [33] developed their analyses and interpreted the data in [29].
Table 1: Values for expression differences between autosomal and X-linked genes obtained from Figure 1 in [33].
Sample tested

AX

Male somatic cells (control for

DC)

-0.02

SL2 cells msl2-RNAi (control for

lack of DC)

0.59***

Mitotic

0.56***

Meiotic

0.68***

A-X: difference between chromosomal median of log 2 expression

DC: Dosage compensation

SL2 cells msl2-RNAi: D. melanogaster male-like SL2 cells in which

mRNA encoding MSL2 was knocked down by RNA interference (RNAi) [48].
***p<0.001 (Mann-Whitney test).

Statistical Analyses for comparison between

mitotic and meiotic expression
Meiklejohn et al. [33] tested the small, but previously found by Vibranovski et al. [29] to be significant, reduction of X-linked genes in meiosis in comparison to mitosis using t-tests with false discovery
rate (FDR) to correct for multiple tests followed by
contingency table tests. Their tests revealed a modest
dearth of upregulated genes but no excess of
down-regulated genes on the X chromosome in meiotic samples relative to mitotic samples [33]. Given the
level of impurity of mitotic samples, it is not surprising that their approach would fail to detect
down-regulation, as opposed to our Bayesian framework that fully account for all uncertainties and noise
involved in both data collection and modeling steps
[29].
Differences between the two statistical methods
are clear-cut. In the t-test approach, the first step is
implemented to individually classify all the genes as
over, under or equally expressed by comparing the
expression values of meiosis against mitosis, where

110
each phase has three replicates [33]. In the second
step, Fisher exact tests are used to compare the proportions of genes in each class (under or not under
expressed) for X chromosome and autosomes [33].
Only in this latter step would X-inactivation be detected in which X chromosome would present significant more meiotic under-expressed genes than the
autosomes. This step counts the number of previously
classified cases of under-expressing genes without
taking
into
consideration
the
levels
of
down-regulation and the variability among cases. In
other words, the t-test approach disregards the additional information on the magnitude of expression
differences of genes in the different samples that can
be used to detect expression differences in the different stages.
In contrast, the Bayesian approach [29] first derives the empirical distributions of the expression
differences between meiosis and mitosis of the genes
on the X chromosome and autosomes. Second, those
empirical distributions are approximated by a finite
mixture of two normal distributions. Third, X chromosome and autosomal distributions are compared.
This approach avoids the need for using correction for
multiple testing because it tests the differential expression at the same time that compares chromosomes [29]. In addition, as the method does not first
classify individual genes as over an under expressed,
the analysis incorporates the magnitudes of gene expression differences between samples to further increase power to detect differences. The Bayesian
analyses were able to detect a larger proportion of
differently expressed genes than the t-test approach:
~85% versus ~65% [29, 33].
Additionally, the two major inconsistences between the two approaches raised by Meiklejohn et al.
[33] are the following. First, Meiklejohn et al. [33]
mistakenly claimed that the Bayesian approach [29]
did not exclude genes that are lowly expressed and
therefore not significantly expressed above the background. It is possible that the noise generated would
mask the real expression differences between chromosomes [33]. However, Vibranovski at al. [29] have
also analyzed genes known to be expressed in testis
and therefore are above the background expression.
Despite the reduction of probe densities, the main
conclusions were not changed [29]. Second, Meiklejohn et al. [33] also mistakenly argued that the
t-tests account for the variation between replicates
values more properly than the Bayesian model [29] as
the latter uses mean values for comparisons. However, variances between replicates were negligible
smaller than the mean change across stages (e.g.,
meiosis-mitosis). In addition, the results obtained
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from the Bayesian approach are robust when using
each one of the replicate measurements separately
(unpublished but available upon request). Variation
in p-values is an inherent feature of the t-test with
small sample size such as three replicates.
Interestingly, additional statistical evidence for
MSCI is that even Meiklejohn et al. [33] approach was
able to detected significant down-regulation of the dot
(the 4th chromosome in D. melanogaster) during meiosis in comparison to mitosis [33]. Today, we know that
it is possible that the dot in Drosophila has been shown
to be ancestrally an X chromosome and to still bear
features common to expression regulation of the X
chromosome during the spermatogenesis [16].

Differential Somatic Contamination

One source of bias for the interpretation of Meiklejohn et al. [33] for the lower expression of X-linked
genes observed in Vibranovski et al. [29] is the differential somatic contamination between the mitotic
and meiotic samples. The mitotic sample was obtained with the testis sheath which is a somatic tissue
that undergoes complete dosage compensation, presenting X chromosome hypertranscription [29, 33, 46].
The meiotic sample, however, was extracted without
the sheath and therefore contains mostly germline
cells, which Meiklejohn et al. [33] claimed lacks dosage compensation. In order to test the hypothesis that
the somatic tissue contained in the mitotic sample is
inflating the X chromosome expression, Meiklejohn et
al. [33] analyzed 12 X-linked genes in samples where
the testis sheath was detached from the mitotic cells:
Table 3 in [33]. For all those genes, the
down-regulation observed in the meiotic sample relative to the mitotic sample with sheath disappears
when mitotic without sheath was used [33]. This result indicates that sheath contamination in the mitotic
sample is a major factor contributing to the differences
between X and autosomal expression observed in the
meiotic samples [33].
However, this analysis did not take into account
that the process of removing testis sheath could significantly decrease the amount of mitotic cells. As
mitotic samples also contain meiotic cells (see Mitotic
Purity), such a procedure would rather reduce the
signal of X inactivation obtained through the comparison between mitotic and meiotic samples. The
removal of testis sheaths from the apical tips containing the mitotic cells is not trivial. Similar to the
meiotic dissections of Vibranovski et al. [29], mitotic
cells can be harvested from the sheath by applying
gradual pressure positioning insect pins over the apical tip in an anterior-posterior direction (Figure 3A,
B). Several cells, most probably very early spermato-

111
gonia, could stick into the upper most region of the
sheath tip (Figure 3A, B). In addition, as the dissections are made in PBS buffer drops, the chance for cell
diffusion and subsequent loss are higher for smaller
cells such as the early mitotic ones (Figure 3C and D).
Therefore, until other techniques prove to be more
effective, the mitotic without sheath sample is likely to
be reduced with mitotic cells causing misinterpretations of the results in [33].
Alternatively, in order to test the possible differential effect of somatic expression, Vibranovski et
al [29] analyzed the expression of testis-biased genes,
i.e. genes higher expressed in testis than in ovaries.
The contribution of somatic expression is reduced in
this dataset as it is enriched for genes differentially
expressed between germlines. As expected for the
MSCI
hypothesis,
down-regulation
of
the
X-chromosome in meiosis was observed for testis-biased genes [29]. Curiously, all 12 genes analyzed
by the mitotic without sheath experiment are not testis-biased genes, expect for the gene CG1835 that
clearly show no sheath effect in Table 3 in [33].

Transgene Expression in mitotic and meiotic

samples
Finally, Meiklejohn et al. [33] proposed that another unrecognized mechanism regulates X chromosome expression during spermatogenesis. The conclusion was reached by reproducing the analysis of
testis-specific ocnus transgene expression [30] but
measuring the insertions expression in testis specific
stages: the mitotic and the meiotic samples from [29].
Until this analysis, their interpretations of their results
were i) that the male germline lacks dosage compensation and ii) MSCI does not exist [33]. However, the
transgene experiment showed that X-linked insertions
are more lowly expressed in both mitotic and meiotic
cells [33]. As in previous transgenic analyses [30], insertions were made heterozygously in autosomes and
hemizygously in the X, leading to one copy of each
insertion in the genome regardless its location. As
dosage compensation is achieved by X hypertranscription [46], expression differences observed between X-linked and autosomal inserts cannot be explained by the absence of dosage compensation (Figure 1). Taken together, the authors suggested that in
D. melanogaster there is previously unrecognized
mechanism for the down-regulating of the X chromosome expression during spermatogenesis which is
lack of neither dosage compensation nor MSCI [33],
although no specifics were given to the suspected
mechanism and made the hypothesis vague and untestable.

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Journal of Genomics 2014, Vol. 2

112

Figure 3. Scheme of technique for testis sheath removal. A. D. melanogaster apical tip containing the mitotic sample surrounded
by testis sheath (yellow). Mitotic cells are smaller, show bright DNA staining and are located in the upper most region of the tip. Meiotic
cells are larger, show less DNA staining and occupy lower regions. B. Squeezing of cells by insect pins produces gradual pressure over the
apical tip in an anterior-posterior direction. C. Groups of cells just after extraction from the apical tip in a PBS drop. D. Cell diffusion
before pipetting suction. Note that in both techniques (B and D) mitotic cells have less chance to be sampled.

However, Meiklejohn et al. [33] did not take into

account the expression distribution of the reporter
genes along the testes showed by in situ experiments
[30, 39]. There is almost no expression in mitotic
phases for most of the reporter genes as opposed to
high levels of expression in the later phases of spermatogenesis including the meiosis [30, 39] which according to [39] suggests contamination between
stages may be an important confounding factor in
studies that compare expression between dissected
regions of the testes. Also, the region corresponding
to the mitotic cells with no reporter expression [30, 39]
is much smaller than the apical tip dissected in [29]
and by Meiklejohn et al. [33]. Therefore, lower expression of X-linked inserts observed for both mitotic
and meiotic sample is probably due to MSCI effect in
meiotic cells present in the mitotic sample [39].
Therefore, given the evidence that i) down regulation of X-linked genes is observed in multiple
studies and using multiple methods [29,30,35]; ii)
down regulation is observed related to the meiotic
stage of spermatogenesis [29,30,35] and iii) mitotic
samples are not pure, it appears unlikely that the

conclusions of Meiklejohn et al. [33] are the parsimonious solutions. It is more likely to be an erroneous
interpretation of the previous published data due to
failure to realize that the mitotic samples contain cells
from mitotic and meiotic stages of spermatogenesis
[29].

Expression Analyses of Mutants of Early Developmental Arrest

Despite all the debate about meiotic sex chromosome inactivation (MSCI) in Drosophila, a lot of
discussion regarding the status of X chromosome
dosage compensation (DC) in the D. melanogaster male
germline has recently intensified in the literature [31,
37, 49]. However, only a few studies have tried to assess and disentangle the contribution of both mechanisms to the evolution of gene expression in the
germline [31, 37]. In theory, MSCI is the inactivation
of the X chromosome and lack of DC is the absence of
hypertranscription of the X chromosome which in
males are present in only one copy. However, both
phenomena could be seen as lowering the total level
of X-linked gene expression in comparison to the total

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Journal of Genomics 2014, Vol. 2

level of autosomal expression. The magnitude of the
down-regulation would depend on the power to detect such lower transcription, on the level and incidence of MSCI and/or on the incidence of partial DC.
Below, I review the current data examining simultaneously MSCI and DC aspects.
Significant average lower expression of X-linked
genes relative to autosomal genes in independent
comparisons using whole testis of wild-type flies has
been claimed as evidence for lack of DC in D. melanogaster [33]. Specifically, as the magnitude of differential expression of genes linked to X chromosome and
autosomes in the germline is similar to what is found
for somatic systems lacking dosage compensation [33,
48]. However, whole testis contains all development
stages of spermatogenesis. The majority of testis expression comes from spermatocytes (cells of the meiotic phase) [29] and therefore MSCI cannot be ruled
out as a contributing factor accounting for the expression differences between genes located in the X
chromosome and the autosomes found in whole testis. Moreover, exclusion of MSCI based on apical tips
dissections [33] is inherently inaccurate and therefore
cannot be used to distinguish between these two possibilities.
However, both DC and MSCI have been investigated through the expression profile of D. melanogaster mutants for spermatogenesis early developmental arrest such as bag of marbles (bam) and benign
gonial cell neoplasm (bgcn) [31, 33, 37, 49]. In those mutants, spermatogenesis is disrupted at an early stage
and their testes display disproportionate number of
cells of the same size as the primary spermatocytes
which never undergo subsequent meiotic morphological changes [50]. Comparison between Xlinked
and autosomal expression in testis of wild-type and
mutants flies could reveal the status of DC and MSCI
in the germline (Figure 4). X chromosome
down-regulation due to MSCI is expected to occur
only in meiosis, a phase that is only completely present in wild-type testes. Hypertranscription of the X
chromosome due to DC, in contrast, is expected to be
found in both mutants and wild-type testis.
Microarray experiments found no global reduction in the expression of all X-linked genes in either
wild-type or bcgn mutant testis [31]. This result suggested that the male germline is dosage compensated
and MSCI is absent in meiotic cells as proposed in
Figure 4A. However, the same group later analyzed
RNAseq data [51] from another mutant, bam, to investigate the X: A median expression ratios [37].
While wild-type testes displayed significantly lower
expression of X-linked genes (~65% of the autosomal
expression), in testes from bam mutants, X-linked ex-

113
pression is much more similar and not significantly
different from those observed for autosomes; (~90%)
(Figure 4D) [37]. These results indicate not only that
there is X chromosome DC in early mitotic cells but
that MSCI exists, as X chromosome expression is even
lower in wild-type testis [37]. Similar results were
concomitantly observed by Meiklejohn et al. [33]
when analyzing the same data [51]. This latter study
found significant 10% reduction in the expression of
bam mutant testis, suggesting some level of DC in
mitotic cells [33]. The study also confirmed significantly larger expression reduction in the X chromosome in wild-type testis [33]. However, the authors
concluded that the down regulation observed in differentiating spermatocytes was due to a previously
unrecognized mechanism of X chromosome [33]. Very
similar results were thus interpreted as different
phenomena [33, 37]. The first group [37] interpreted
the results as nearly complete DC and evidence for the
existence of MSCI (Figure 4D), whereas the second
group [33] suggested that incomplete DC and the existence of another previously undescribed mechanism
of X chromosome down regulation better explained
the observed results.
Recently, however, a reanalysis of microarray
data [52] from an independent study of different bam
mutant alleles found reduced (by ~50%)
X-chromosome expression in both mutant and
wild-type testes as proposed in Figure 4B (Table 2) by
Meiklejohn and Presgraves [49]. This result suggests
not only a lack of DC but also absence of MSCI. X
chromosome expression reduction in wild-type testis
would likely to be consequence of the lack of DC extended to later spermatogenic phases [49]. Microarray
experiments produce expression signal for all genes
regardless their real expression and therefore the application of probe filtering is a legitimate procedure to
avoid effects from background hybridization. However, the exclusion of datasets with expression values
lower than a certain threshold used in this study [49]
might not be completely safe. Mutants in theory lack
the expression of certain genes that are present in the
wild-type flies. The removal of those genes from the
experimental equation could minimize the differences
between the two samples. The same study also selected probe sets showing the strongest signal intensity across all samples [49] which could bias the data
by homogenizing the intensity values among
wild-type and bam mutant testes.
In order to investigate if probe filtering could
affect the X-autosome expression differences, I
re-analyzed the microarray data from [52]. No probe
selection or an alternative probe filtering provided
results supporting a different scenario (Table 2). Bam
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Journal of Genomics 2014, Vol. 2

mutants never present intense (50%) reduction of
X-chromosome expression. More importantly,
wild-type testes consistently present a larger
X-chromosome expression reduction than mutants, in
agreement with the hypothesis in which X inactivation in meiotic cells is an important player.
In summary, it is known that mutants should be
used with caution to assess expression profile spermatogenesis as they present an aberrant spermatogenesis [49]. However, bam mutants proved to be a
powerful experimental approach to expose the presence of DC and MSCI in spermatogenesis [33, 37] and
this study. The majority of those studies showed significant lower expression of the X-linked genes in
wild-type testis in comparison to mutants which
supports the existence of MSCI. In addition, in mutant
testes which are depleted of meiotic cells, X-linked
and autosomal genes showed similar, or at least more
similar, expression as expected for DC occurring in
the germline.

114
Table 2: Different analyses for expression data on bam
mutant and wild-type testis [52]
Microarray Data
Re-analysis in Re-analysis
Re-analysis
[49]
with all probes with filterb
Bam Mutant
Median A
Median Xc

0.61

-0.27

0.327

P-valuea

NA

0.84

0.036

Median A
Median Xc

0.45

0.24

0.614

P-valuea

NA

9.46e-8

2.65e-11

Wild-Type
Testis

a. Mann-Whitney test
b. Filter to remove absent expression. Only probes with Affymetrix presence
call in at least one replicate microarray experiment of either bam or wild-type
testis were kept. Random selection of one probe for genes with multiple
probes. NA stands for not available.
c. Medians were given in log2 values.

Figure 4. DC and MSCI investigation through mutant and wild-type testes. Expected levels of expression for X-linked and
autosomal genes in bam or bgcn mutant and wild-type testes considering the presence or absence of DC and MSCI. A. In a male germline
with DC and lack of MSCI, X-linked and autosomal genes would show the same level of expression in both mutant and wild-type testes.
Scenario observed in [31]. B. For cases lacking DC and MSCI, expression of X-linked would be equivalent of half those from autosomal
genes in all types of testis. C. In a germline with both DC and MSCI, only wild-type testes would display expression of X-linked genes as
half as the autosomal genes expression level. D. Observed scenario in [33,37] and in this work, MSCI and nearly complete DC. Wild-type
testis showed significantly greater reduction of X-linked genes expression than mutant testis.

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Journal of Genomics 2014, Vol. 2

Global Expression Analyses using Larval Testis
Spermatogenesis starts during the early development of Drosophila [40, 53]. First stage larval testes
contain the first wave of germline cells undergoing
differentiation, i.e. the products of successive divisions of single gonial cells that have not yet reached
the final stages of sperm maturation [53] (Figure 5A
and B). Second and third instar larvae are progressively enriched with spermatocytes whereas the
production of post-meiotic cells and mature sperm
mostly occurs during pupal stages and adults [53]
(Figure 5B). Therefore, comparing the expression profile of X chromosome and autosomes in larval testes
could be a valuable experimental approach to test the
MSCI hypothesis in Drosophila. This approach was
first claimed to provide evidence against MSCI [34].
Mikhaylova and Nurminsky [34] presented two
major findings, which support their claim that there is

115
no MSCI in Drosophila. First, testis-biased genes located both in the X chromosome and in the autosomes
are transcriptionally activated during the meiotic
stages of larval spermatogenesis [34]. If MSCI occurs
in male meiosis, the transcriptional activation of
X-linked genes should not be expected [34]. However,
the method for selection of testis-biased genes is intrinsically a selection of male-meiosis-biased genes.
Testis-biased genes are obtained from the comparison
between testes and ovaries. As the bulk of testis expression comes from spermatocytes, 80% of testis-biased genes are actually meiotically expressed
[29]. Therefore testis-biased genes, regardless their
genomic location, are expected to be highly expressed
in meiosis and probably activated in that phase regardless their chromosomal location.

Figure 5. Description of larval testis expression analysis used in [34]. A. Larvae with testis. B. Cell content in the testis of 2nd
instar larvae. C. General experiment description and statistics. Each X-linked and autosomal gene here respectively represented by
chrX1,...,chrXn and Aut1,..,Autn have their expression measured in 10 replicates. Variation among replicates represents 30% of the total
variance. Nevertheless, only the mean of replicates were used to assess chromosomal expression differences described in (D). D. Box plot
representing the distribution of expression intensity means of 10 replicates for all D. melanogaster transcript in a given development stage.
X-linked and autosomal statistics are shown in orange and blue, respectively.

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Journal of Genomics 2014, Vol. 2

The second major finding against MSCI in this
study comes from the global gene expression analysis
in larval testis [34]. Genes on the X chromosome and
autosomes were not differently expressed in testis in
any of the larval stages analyzed [34] (Figure 5D).
However, re-analyses of the data revealed a large experimental error between replicates that could compromise statistical power to detect expression differences [35]. More specifically, no significant difference
in expression between X and autosomes was detected
using comparisons of X chromosome and autosomal
distributions for gene expression (Figure 5D). However, only the mean of the biological replicates (Figure
5C, column Mean) were used as data in Figure 5D.
All the variance between biological replicate was disregarded in the first analysis [34]. The evaluation of
variance (error) between replicates was much greater
than in quality microarray experiments [29] (Figure
5C) which, if disregarded, may have affected the
studys conclusions [35].
Analyses under proper statistical framework but
still not accounting for replicate errors revealed significant down-regulation of the X chromosome with
the increase of testis development and therefore enrichment with meiotic cells [35]. Although this finding
was later acknowledged by all parties involved in the
debate [36, 39], the discussion remained focused on
the level of X-linked genes down-regulation and how
far this pattern should be consider as a severe and
global X chromosomal inactivation similar to the
well-known MSCI in mammals [36,39,49].
It is not possible that an experimental error as
described above [34-36] would allow us to evaluate
the level of down-regulation of the X chromosome.
This will only be clarified by redoing the biological
experiments with smaller errors. By removing the
noise caused by experimental errors, the down regulation of the X chromosome probably will be stronger.
However, the currently observed X chromosome
down regulation should not be neglected as an independent evidence for MSCI.

Final Remarks
Revisiting in detail all evidence regarding MSCI
revealed that the negative argument in the debate is
mostly based on erroneous interpretation of the same
experimental data, often due to statistical misconceptions and errors and on the lack of knowledge about
the methods used so far for MSCI detection in D.
melanogaster. In order to obtain large amount of RNA
previously required in global expression profiles,
large-scale dissection created the sample mixed mitotic and meiotic samples [29]. In addition, it is unclear if the Y undergoes any down-regulation since

116
the expressions of Y-linked genes during spermatogenesis have not been carefully analyzed in flies. Once
those limitations were properly handled in statistical
analysis, evidence in favor of MSCI becomes clear, but
magnitude, range and the exactly timing in spermatogenesis are still interesting problems to investigate.
A new era for high throughput of expressed sequence
analyses and for single cell dissection has begun that
potentially will allow the determination of the precise
time and global range of MSCI in D. melanogaster.
Although there is no power to state the magnitude of MSCI in Drosophila, a lot of comparisons have
been made to mammals MSCI that has been claimed
to be stronger [33, 36, 39]. The comparison between
the magnitude of the X-linked genes down regulation
in Drosophila and in mammals is not meaningful for
understanding MSCI evolutionary role. The real
question should be that whether or not there is a significant signal of MSCI. If there is, then MSCI can play
a role in evolution as even weak selection can have a
significant effect in long evolutionary processes.
In fact, in this case, because of the differences of
population sizes between organisms, a possible
smaller level of MSCI in Drosophila and therefore an
assumed weaker selection could have a similar role in
evolution as the strong MSCI in mammals as the latest
have much smaller population size. Indeed, compensatory meiotic expression of genes duplicated from
the X chromosome to autosomes has been found for
both mammals and Drosophila revealing the evolutionary outcomes of selection against X-linked genes
expressed in males during the MSCI [28, 29].

Acknowledgments
I deeply thank Manyuan Long, Timothy L. Karr
and Hedibert F. Lopes for the work done together and
the innumerous discussions about MSCI. I greatly
thank Nicholas Vankuren for scientific comments and
proofreading of the manuscript. I thank Domitille
Chalopin for taking the picture of the dissected apical
tip shown in Figure 2A. I also thank John Parsch and
Claus Kemkemer for discussion. MDV were supported by a National Institutes of Health grant (NIH
R0IGM078070-01A1), the NIH ARRA supplement
grant (R01 GM078070-03S1) and by the Fundao de
Amparo Pesquisa do Estado de So Paulo (FAPESP)
for the travel grant (2013/09714-6).

Competing Interests
The author has declared that no competing interest exists.

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Journal of Genomics 2014, Vol. 2

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