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 language | English |
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Journal | Genome |
Volume | 43 |
Issue number | 6 |
Pages (from-to) | 1011-1020 |
Number of pages | 10 |
ISSN | 0831-2796 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2000 |
Research Areas and Centers
- Academic Focus: Center for Infection and Inflammation Research (ZIEL)