Analysis of Drosophila yellow-B cDNA reveals a new family of proteins related to the royal jelly proteins in the honeybee and to an orphan protein in an unusual bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans.
The yellow locus in Drosophila is involved in both cuticle development and behaviour. However, the function of the encoded protein is unknown. Here we have characterised the sequence and expression pattern of a new Drosophila gene, designated yellow-B, encoding a 453-amino-acid protein that is 57% identical to Yellow. High levels of yellow-B mRNA are present in the larval-pupal stages, but the gene is also expressed in the head. Bioinformatics analysis indicates that the Drosophila genome encodes at least 7 members of the Yellow family distributed among chromosomes 2, 3, and X. The Yellow proteins are related to the Royal Jelly proteins and have no relatives in other non-insect metazoan species. Interestingly, a Yellow-like protein is encoded by the genome of a radiation tolerant bacterium, Deinococcus radiodurans.
Maleszka
R
R
Visual Sciences, Research School of Biological Sciences, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia. maleszka@rsbs.anu.edu.au
Kucharski
R
R
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D001516:Bees / Q000235:genetics*; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics*; D016678:Genome; D006095:Gram-Positive Cocci / Q000235:genetics; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D005810:Multigene Family; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D019476:Insect Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; C050680:y protein, Drosophila; C408048:yellow-B protein, Drosophila