{"day":"28","date_published":"2026-01-28T00:00:00Z","oa_version":"Published Version","publication_identifier":{"eissn":["1471-2954"]},"PlanS_conform":"1","article_processing_charge":"Yes (via OA deal)","pmid":1,"title":"Single-nucleus resolution of sex-biased expression and dosage compensation in Drosophila melanogaster","tmp":{"short":"CC BY (4.0)","legal_code_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0)","image":"/images/cc_by.png"},"issue":"2063","type":"journal_article","publication_status":"published","file":[{"success":1,"date_updated":"2026-02-16T09:26:02Z","file_id":"21226","relation":"main_file","checksum":"d76afebca0a6f112df0146ae2d929f36","file_name":"2026_RoyalSocPubProceedingsB_Barata.pdf","date_created":"2026-02-16T09:26:02Z","file_size":2230841,"creator":"dernst","content_type":"application/pdf","access_level":"open_access"}],"author":[{"first_name":"Carolina","full_name":"De Castro Barbosa Rodrigues Barata, Carolina","orcid":"0000-0003-1945-2245","id":"20565186-803f-11ed-ab7e-96a4ff7694ef","last_name":"De Castro Barbosa Rodrigues Barata"},{"last_name":"Vicoso","id":"49E1C5C6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","full_name":"Vicoso, Beatriz","orcid":"0000-0002-4579-8306","first_name":"Beatriz"}],"language":[{"iso":"eng"}],"OA_place":"publisher","doi":"10.1098/rspb.2025.2471","publisher":"Royal Society of London","user_id":"2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","corr_author":"1","year":"2026","intvolume":" 293","abstract":[{"lang":"eng","text":"In many species, sex-biased expression is widespread and thought to contribute to sexual dimorphism. While bulk RNA-sequencing has been instrumental in identifying strongly sex-biased genes, it lacks resolution to assess variation across cell-types and tissue compartments. Using single-nucleus expression data from the Fly Cell Atlas, we investigate sex differences in adult Drosophila melanogaster. We find that differences in cell-type composition between the sexes are not a major source of sex-bias, as for the vast majority of genes, the degree of sex-bias is similar regardless of whether sex differences in cell-type composition are controlled for or not. Our analysis confirms a deficit of X-linked male-biased genes in the body’s somatic tissues that is widespread across cell-types. We also find the excess of X-linked female-biased genes to be associated with nervous system cells in the head but with epithelial cells in the body’s somatic tissues, showing that single-nucleus data crucially resolves sex-bias at the cell-type level. We investigate dosage compensation (DC) across 15 tissues and 17 cell-types. We observe that it varies throughout the body. Surprisingly, we observe a lack of DC in a cluster of main cells within the male accessory glands. This result highlights the importance of understanding context-dependent DC."}],"project":[{"grant_number":"ESP 6331524","name":"Does genetic drift set a limit on the adaptive evolution of sex-biased expression?","_id":"90ef7108-16d5-11f0-9cad-e6e116913473"}],"quality_controlled":"1","status":"public","article_type":"original","external_id":{"pmid":["41592777"]},"has_accepted_license":"1","month":"01","acknowledgement":"This work was partly funded by an Austrian Science Foundation FWF ESPRIT fellowship (10.55776/ESP6331524) to C.B. We would like to thank the Vicoso group for their invaluable input and discussions throughout this work. We thank Filip Ruzicka for his insightful comments on the manuscript. All computational resources were provided by the Scientific Computing Unit at ISTA. This research was also supported through resources provided by the Imaging & Optics Facility (IOF) at ISTA.","OA_type":"hybrid","scopus_import":"1","file_date_updated":"2026-02-16T09:26:02Z","article_number":"20252471","date_updated":"2026-02-16T09:27:33Z","citation":{"chicago":"Castro Barbosa Rodrigues Barata, Carolina de, and Beatriz Vicoso. “Single-Nucleus Resolution of Sex-Biased Expression and Dosage Compensation in Drosophila Melanogaster.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. Royal Society of London, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.2471.","ista":"de Castro Barbosa Rodrigues Barata C, Vicoso B. 2026. Single-nucleus resolution of sex-biased expression and dosage compensation in Drosophila melanogaster. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 293(2063), 20252471.","mla":"de Castro Barbosa Rodrigues Barata, Carolina, and Beatriz Vicoso. “Single-Nucleus Resolution of Sex-Biased Expression and Dosage Compensation in Drosophila Melanogaster.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, vol. 293, no. 2063, 20252471, Royal Society of London, 2026, doi:10.1098/rspb.2025.2471.","short":"C. de Castro Barbosa Rodrigues Barata, B. Vicoso, Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 293 (2026).","ieee":"C. de Castro Barbosa Rodrigues Barata and B. Vicoso, “Single-nucleus resolution of sex-biased expression and dosage compensation in Drosophila melanogaster,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, vol. 293, no. 2063. Royal Society of London, 2026.","apa":"de Castro Barbosa Rodrigues Barata, C., & Vicoso, B. (2026). Single-nucleus resolution of sex-biased expression and dosage compensation in Drosophila melanogaster. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. Royal Society of London. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.2471","ama":"de Castro Barbosa Rodrigues Barata C, Vicoso B. Single-nucleus resolution of sex-biased expression and dosage compensation in Drosophila melanogaster. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 2026;293(2063). doi:10.1098/rspb.2025.2471"},"department":[{"_id":"BeVi"}],"publication":"Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences","_id":"21161","ddc":["570"],"volume":293,"oa":1,"date_created":"2026-02-08T23:02:49Z","acknowledged_ssus":[{"_id":"ScienComp"},{"_id":"Bio"}]}