LAUSR

New genes are of recent origin and only present in a subset of species in a phylogeny. Accumulated evidence suggests that new genes, like old genes that are conserved across species, can also take on important functions and be essential for the survival and reproductive success of organisms. While there are detailed analyses of the mechanisms underlying new genes' gaining fertility functions, how new genes rapidly become essential for viability remains unclear. We focused on a young retro-duplicated gene (CG7804, which we named Cocoon) in Drosophila that originated between 4-10 million years ago. We found that, unlike its evolutionarily conserved parental gene, Cocoon has evolved under positive selection and accumulated many amino acid differences at functional sites from the parental gene. Despite its young age, Cocoon is essential for the survival of D. melanogaster at multiple developmental stages, including the critical embryonic stage, and its expression is essential in different tissues from those of its parental gene. Functional genomic analyses found that Cocoon acquired unique DNA binding sites and has a contrasting effect on gene expression to that of its parental gene. Importantly, Cocoon binding predominantly locates at genes that have other essential functions and/or have multiple gene-gene interactions, suggesting that Cocoon acquired novel essential function to survival through forming interactions that have large impacts on the gene interaction network. Our study is an important step towards deciphering the evolutionary trajectory by which new genes functionally diverge from parental genes and become essential.