Dnmt1 knockdown of milkweed bug testes
Producing viable gametes is fundamental to reproductive success. Gamete production itself is a highly complicated process with a surprising amount of molecular diversity. It is an under-utilized phenotype to better understand the evolutionary diversity of molecular mechanisms of shared phenotypes. Cytosine methylation and its machinery are retained in many insect lineages. The system has a consistent and DNA methylation-independent function during gamete formation. Here, we tested the a priori hypothesis that perturbed genetic pathways will be associated with meiosis using transcriptomics because previous our work using Oncopeltus fasciatus shows that gametogenesis is interrupted at meiosis following knockdown of DNA methyltransferase 1 (Dnmt1). Testes, which are almost exclusively contain gametes at varying stages of development, were sampled at 7-days and 14-days following knockdown of Dmnt1 using RNAi.