title: A mutation in Drosophila simulans that lengthens the circadian period of locomotor activity.
abstract: The length of the Thr-Gly repeat within the period gene of Drosophilids, coevolves with its immediate flanking region to maintain the temperature compensation of the fly circadian clock. In Drosophila simulans, balancing selection appears to maintain a polymorphism in this region, with three repeat lengths carrying 23, 24 or 25 Thr-Gly pairs, each in complete linkage disequilibrium with a distinctive flanking region amino acid moiety. We wondered whether separating a specific length repeat from its associated flanking haplotype might have functional implications for the circadian clock. We fortuitously discovered a population of flies collected in Kenya, in which a chimeric Thr-Gly haplotype was segregating that carried the (Thr-Gly)24 repeat, but the flanking region of a (Thr-Gly)23 allele. One of the five isofemale lines that carried this 'mutant' Thr-Gly sequence showed a dramatically long and temperature-sensitive free-running circadian period. This phenotype was mapped to the X chromosome, close to the D. simulans per gene, but there was also a significant effect of a modifying autosomal locus or loci. It seems remarkable that such a mutant phenotype should be discovered in a screen of chimeric Thr-Gly regions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK.
authors.forename: A S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Rogers
authors.forename: Stefan A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Escher
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pasetto
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rosato
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.forename: C P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Kyriacou
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002940:Circadian Rhythm; D004330:Drosophila / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D017344:Genes, Insect; D005998:Glycine / Q000235:genetics; D006239:Haplotypes; D007630:Kenya; D015810:Linkage Disequilibrium; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000235:genetics*; D009154:Mutation; D010641:Phenotype; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D013696:Temperature; D013912:Threonine / Q000235:genetics; D013997:Time Factors; D014960:X Chromosome
chemical_list: D013912:Threonine; D005998:Glycine