Open AccessGENETIC LIMITS OF THE XANTHINE DEHYDROGENASE STRUCTURAL ELEMENT WITHIN THE ROSY LOCUS IN DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER
Author(s) -
William M. Gelbart,
Margaret McCarron,
Janardan P. Pandey,
Arthur Chovnick
Publication year - 1974
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/78.3.869
Subject(s) - xanthine dehydrogenase , drosophila melanogaster , biology , locus (genetics) , genetics , mutant , gene , structural gene , enzyme , biochemistry , xanthine oxidase
Experiments are described that provide an opportunity to estimate the genetic limits of the structural (amino acid coding) portion of the rosy locus (3:52.0) in Drosophila melanogaster, which controls the enzyme, xanthine dehydrogenase (XDH). This is accomplished by mapping experiments which localize sites responsible for electrophoretic variation in the enzyme on the known genetic map of null-XDH rosy mutants. Electrophoretic sites are distributed along a large portion of the null mutant map. A cis-trans test involving electrophoretic variants in the left- and right-hand portions of the map leads to the conclusion that the entire region between these variants is also structural. Hence most, if not all, of the null mutant map of the rosy locus contains structural information for the amino acid sequence of the XDH polypeptide. Consideration is given to the significance of the present results for the general problem of gene organization in higher eukaryotes.