Genetic and bioinformatic analysis of 41C and the 2R heterochromatin of Drosophila melanogaster: a window on the heterochromatin-euchromatin junction.
Genomic sequences provide powerful new tools in genetic analysis, making it possible to combine classical genetics with genomics to characterize the genes in a particular chromosome region. These approaches have been applied successfully to the euchromatin, but analysis of the heterochromatin has lagged somewhat behind. We describe a combined genetic and bioinformatics approach to the base of the right arm of the Drosophila melanogaster second chromosome, at the boundary between pericentric heterochromatin and euchromatin. We used resources provided by the genome project to derive a physical map of the region, examine gene density, and estimate the number of potential genes. We also carried out a large-scale genetic screen for lethal mutations in the region. We identified new alleles of the known essential genes and also identified mutations in 21 novel loci. Fourteen complementation groups map proximal to the assembled sequence. We used PCR to map the endpoints of several deficiencies and used the same set of deficiencies to order the essential genes, correlating the genetic and physical map. This allowed us to assign two of the complementation groups to particular "computed/curated genes" (CGs), one of which is Nipped-A, which our evidence suggests encodes Drosophila Tra1/TRRAP.
Myster
Steven H
SH
Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27599-3280, USA.
Wang
Fei
F
Cavallo
Robert
R
Christian
Whitney
W
Bhotika
Seema
S
Anderson
Charles T
CT
Peifer
Mark
M
D000818:Animals; D022202:Chromosomes, Artificial, Bacterial; D019295:Computational Biology; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics*; D022041:Euchromatin / Q000235:genetics*; D006570:Heterochromatin / Q000235:genetics*; D017404:In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence; D009154:Mutation; D020161:Physical Chromosome Mapping; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid
D022041:Euchromatin; D006570:Heterochromatin