Structural conservation of the salivary gland-specific slalom gene in the blowfly Lucilia sericata.
Glycosylation and sulfation are two of the essential post-translational modifications of proteins. The slalom gene encodes a 3'-phosphoadenosine 5'-phosphosulfate transporter, a conserved protein found in organisms as diverse as plants and humans and required for sulfation of proteins. In Drosophila, slalom is exclusively expressed in salivary glands, which is unexpected, taken into account the general function for sulfation of proteins. In this paper, we present a detailed description of the slalom gene in a large insect, the blowfly Lucilia sericata. Our data demonstrate that the slalom gene structure, the protein and the expression pattern are highly conserved between Lucilia and Drosophila. Lucilia slalom promoter analysis, using transgenic Drosophila, demonstrates that the Lucilia slalom promoter can faithfully mimic the expression pattern of both Lucilia and Drosophila slalom in salivary glands. Taken together, these data show the structure and the transcriptional cis-regulatory elements of the slalom gene to be unchanged during evolution, despite the 100 million years of divergence between the two insects. Moreover, it suggests that the salivary gland-specific expression of slalom bears an important and conserved function for sulfation of specific macromolecules.
Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, BMC B13, 22184 Lund, Sweden.
Reda A
RA
Ali
Katja
K
Mellenthin
Khalid
K
Fahmy
Sol
S
Da Rocha
Stefan
S
Baumgartner
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D017124:Conserved Sequence / Q000235:genetics*; D004175:Diptera / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D040461:Gene Components; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012469:Salivary Glands / Q000378:metabolism*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013045:Species Specificity; D000076988:Sulfate Transporters
D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D000076988:Sulfate Transporters; C476249:sll protein, Drosophila