A Vestigial:Scalloped TEA domain chimera rescues the wing phenotype of a scalloped mutation in Drosophila melanogaster.
The development of the Drosophila wing requires both scalloped and vestigial functions. Using a fusion between full-length Vestigial and the Scalloped TEA domain, the fusion protein can rescue scalloped wing mutations because within wing development, Scalloped and Vestigial cooperatively act as a transcription complex. Scalloped provides the necessary DNA binding function via the TEA domain and Vestigial promotes the activation of target genes. We also demonstrate that the putative nuclear localization signal contained in the TEA domain of Scalloped is likely responsible for the nuclear localization of Vestigial. The fusion protein is also capable of activating a known target gene of the native complex and thus represents a tool that will be helpful in rapidly identifying target genes of the Sd/Vg complex that are involved in wing differentiation. The functionality of the fusion suggests that only the TEA domain of Scalloped is critical for wing development and the rest of the protein (about 70%) is dispensable. This result is novel and should stimulate further studies of sd in other tissues in view of the fact that scalloped is a vital gene in Drosophila.
Srivastava
Ajay
A
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
MacKay
Julie O
JO
Bell
John B
JB
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000378:metabolism; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000196:embryology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D019913:Nuclear Localization Signals / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D009928:Organ Specificity; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D014921:Wings, Animal / Q000196:embryology / Q000378:metabolism
D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D019913:Nuclear Localization Signals; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors; C087984:sd protein, Drosophila; C095064:vg protein, Drosophila