The Drosophila Homeotic Mutation Nasobemia (Antp(ns)) and Its Revertants: An Analysis of Mutational Reversion

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The homeotic gene Antennapedia (Antp) controls determination of many different cell types in the thorax and abdomen of Drosophila melanogaster. The spontaneous mutant allele Nasobemia (Antp(Ns)) and its revertants have been widely used to infer normal Antp gene function but have not themselves been thoroughly characterized. Our analysis reveals that Antp(Ns) consists of an internal 25-kb partial duplication of the Antp gene as well as a complex insertion of >40 kb of new DNA including two roo transposons. The duplication gives the mutant gene three Antp promoters, and transcripts from each of these are correctly processed to yield functional ANTP proteins. At least two of the promoters are ectopically active in the eye-antenna imaginal discs, leading to homeotic transformation of the adult head. A molecular and genetic description of several Antp(Ns) revertants shows them to be diverse in structure and activity, including a restoration of the wild type, rearrangements separating two of the Antp(Ns) promoters from the coding sequences, and protein nulls and hypomorphs affecting expression from all three of the promoters. Finally, one revertant has a suppressing lesion in the osa locus far away from Antp. These features explain the unusual homozygous viable nature of Antp(Ns), suggest a mechanism by which its homeotic transformation occurs, and exemplify the diversity of ways in which mutational reversion can take place.

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