Determination of male-specific gene expression in Drosophila accessory glands.

The developmental regulation of three male-specific somatic transcripts is investigated. These RNAs are synthesized exclusively in the adult male accessory gland, an internal tissue derived from the genital disk of Drosophila melanogaster. The expression of these male-specific transcripts (msts) is under the control of the sex determination regulatory hierarchy, as demonstrated by the expression of all three msts in chromosomal females carrying mutant alleles at the doublesex (dsx), intersex (ix), or transformer-2 (tra2) loci. Although transcription of all three male RNAs is initiated late in pupation, temperature shifts of X/X; tra2ts2 homozygotes during development indicate that this expression is irreversibly determined earlier, during the third larval instar. A shift of X/X; tra2ts2 homozygotes to the male-determining temperature only for the duration of the late larval period is sufficient to elicit the expression of the msts during the adult stage. This critical period for the determination of these transcripts appears to correlate with the time of morphological determination of the accessory gland in these animals. Thus, the expression of these genes could be specified by the morphological determination of the male-specific tissue in which they are active.