Regulation of Sex-Specific Selection of fruitless 5′ Splice Sites by transformer and transformer-2

AUTOR(ES)

Heinrichs, Volker

FONTE

American Society for Microbiology

RESUMO

In Drosophila melanogaster, the fruitless (fru) gene controls essentially all aspects of male courtship behavior. It does this through sex-specific alternative splicing of the fru pre-mRNA, leading to the production of male-specific fru mRNAs capable of expressing male-specific fru proteins. Sex-specific fru splicing involves the choice between alternative 5′ splice sites, one used exclusively in males and the other used only in females. Here we report that the Drosophila sex determination genes transformer (tra) and transformer-2 (tra-2) switch fru splicing from the male-specific pattern to the female-specific pattern through activation of the female-specific fru 5′ splice site. Activation of female-specific fru splicing requires cis-acting tra and tra-2 repeat elements that are part of an exonic splicing enhancer located immediately upstream of the female-specific fru 5′ splice site and are recognized by the TRA and TRA-2 proteins in vitro. This fru splicing enhancer is sufficient to promote the activation by tra and tra-2 of both a 5′ splice site and the female-specific doublesex (dsx) 3′ splice site, suggesting that the mechanisms of 5′ splice site activation and 3′ splice site activation may be similar.

Documentos Relacionados

• Binding of the Drosophila transformer and transformer-2 proteins to the regulatory elements of doublesex primary transcript for sex-specific RNA processing.
• SRY recognizes conserved DNA sites in sex-specific promoters.
• Pathways for selection of 5' splice sites by U1 snRNPs and SF2/ASF.
• Sex-specific cognitive abnormalities in early-onset psychosis
• Maternal and Zygotic Sex-Specific Gene Interactions in DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER