A deleted hobo element is involved in the unstable thermosensitive vg(al) mutation at the vestigial locus in Drosophila melanogaster.
We have described a new unstable mutant of the vestigial locus isolated from a natural population. From this mutant, vestigial(almost) (vg(al)), wild-type (vg(al+)), and extreme (vg(ext)), alleles arose spontaneously. The molecular analysis of vg(al) shows that the mutation is due to a 1874 bp hobo element inserted in a vestigial intron. Two distinct kinds of events lead a wild-type phenotype. Three independent vg(al+) alleles result from an excision of the hobo element and two other vg(al+) alleles have further deletions of hobo sequence. The sequence of one of them shows a 1516 bp hobo insertion at the same place and in the same orientation as the 1874 bp insertion. In the vg(ext) alleles, we found a 5' or 3' variably sized deletion of vg sequences. One of them, which has been cloned and sequenced, has a deletion finishing exactly at the left terminal repeat' hobo element. The genetic implications of these different genetic structures are discussed.
Université Paris 7, Institut J. Monod, France.
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Bazin
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Williams
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Bell
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Silber
D000483:Alleles; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements / Q000235:genetics*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D010641:Phenotype; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017384:Sequence Deletion
D004251:DNA Transposable Elements