Open AccessStructural changes in the antennapedia complex of Drosophila pseudoobscura.
Author(s) -
Filippo Randazzo,
Mark A. Seeger,
C A Huss,
M A Sweeney,
Jeffrey K. Cecil,
Thomas C. Kaufman
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
genetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.792
H-Index - 246
eISSN - 1943-2631
pISSN - 0016-6731
DOI - 10.1093/genetics/134.1.319
Subject(s) - drosophila pseudoobscura , biology , antennapedia , hox gene , homeotic gene , melanogaster , drosophila melanogaster , genetics , evolutionary biology , homeobox , mauritiana , gene , transcription factor , paleontology , ziziphus
The discovery of the striking positional conservation between the Antennapedia and Bithorax homeotic gene complexes (ANT-C and BX-C) in Drosophila melanogaster and the murine Hox and human HOX clusters has had a substantial impact on our understanding of the evolution of development and its genetic regulation. Structural differences do exist among the mammalian Hox complexes and the ANT-C in D. melanogaster. To gain further insight into the evolutionary changes among these complexes, the ANT-C was cloned in the closely related species, Drosophila pseudoobscura. The overall structure of the ANT-C in D. pseudoobscura is highly similar to its D. melanogaster counterpart; however, two differences in the organization of the ANT-C have been identified. First, the z2 gene, a member of the ANT-C in D. melanogaster, is not present in the D. pseudoobscura ANT-C and is possibly absent from the D. pseudoobscura genome. Second, the orientation of the Deformed gene is inverted in D. pseudoobscura, providing it with a 5' to 3' direction of transcription identical to the remaining ANT-C homeobox genes with the exception of fushi tarazu. These differences demonstrate that subtle changes can occur in ANT-C structure during relatively short periods of evolutionary divergence, although the fundamental organization of the complex is conserved. These observations and others suggest that the complex is not absolutely rigid but that selective pressures have maintained this organization of genes for some functional reason that remains elusive.