The sex-determining gene doublesex in the fly Megaselia scalaris: Conserved structure and sex-specific splicing

Sylvia Kuhn, Volker Sievert, Walther Traut*

*Corresponding author for this work
62 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The well-known sex-determining cascade of Drosophila melanogaster serves as a paradigm for the pathway to sexual development in insects. But the primary sex-determining signal and the subsequent step, Sex-lethal (Sxl), have been shown not to be functionally conserved in non-Drosophila flies. We isolated doublesex (dsx), which is a down-stream step in the cascade, from the phorid fly Megaselia scalaris, which is a distant relative of D. melanogaster. Conserved properties, e.g., sex-specific splicing, structure of the female-specific 3' splice site, a splicing enhancer region with binding motifs for the TRA2/RBP1/TRA complex that activates female-specific splicing in Drosophila, and conserved domains for DNA-binding and oligomerization in the putative DSX protein, indicate functional conservation of dsx in M. scalaris. Hence, the dsx step of the sex-determining pathway appears to be conserved among flies and probably in an even wider group of insects, as the analysis of a published cDNA from the silkmoth indicates.

Original languageEnglish
JournalGenome
Volume43
Issue number6
Pages (from-to)1011-1020
Number of pages10
ISSN0831-2796
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2000

Research Areas and Centers

  • Academic Focus: Center for Infection and Inflammation Research (ZIEL)

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