Binding of the Drosophila transformer and transformer-2 proteins to the regulatory elements of doublesex primary transcript for sex-specific RNA processing.
Sex-specific alternative processing of double-sex (dsx) precursor messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) is one of the key steps that regulates somatic sexual differentiation in Drosophila melanogaster. By transfection analyses using dsx minigene constructs, we identified six copies of the 13-nucleotide sequences TC(T/A)(T/A)C(A/G)ATCAACA in the female-specific fourth exon that act as the cis elements for the female-specific splicing of dsx pre-mRNA. UV-crosslinking experiments revealed that both female-specific transformer (tra) and transformer-2 (tra-2) products bind to the 13-nucleotide sequences of dsx pre-mRNA. These results strongly suggest that the female-specific splicing of dsx pre-mRNA is activated by binding of these proteins to the 13-nucleotide sequences.
Inoue
K
K
Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Science, Kyoto University, Japan.
Hoshijima
K
K
Higuchi
I
I
Sakamoto
H
H
Shimura
Y
Y
D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009694:Nucleic Acid Precursors / Q000378:metabolism; D009838:Oligodeoxyribonucleotides / Q000737:chemistry; D012326:RNA Splicing; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D016601:RNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D012045:Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D012261:Ribonucleoproteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D012733:Sex Differentiation; D014162:Transfection
D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D009694:Nucleic Acid Precursors; D009838:Oligodeoxyribonucleotides; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D016601:RNA-Binding Proteins; D012261:Ribonucleoproteins; C066174:tra2 protein, Drosophila