title: The Drosophila homologue of the dystrophin gene - introns containing promoters are the major contributors to the large size of the gene.
abstract: We show that the drosophila gene encoding the dystrophin-like protein (DLP) is as complex as the mammalian dystrophin gene. Three 5' promoters and three internal promoters regulate the expression of three full-length and three truncated products, respectively. The existence of this complex gene structure in such evolutionary remote organisms suggests that both types of products have diverse important functions. The promoters of both the DLP gene and the mammalian dystrophin gene are located in very large introns. These introns contribute significantly to the large size of the genes. The possible relevance of the conservation of the large size of introns containing promoters to the regulation of promoter activity is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Neuman
authors.forename: Moran
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kovalio
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yaffe
authors.forename: Uri
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Nudel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D017931:DNA Primers; D004330:Drosophila / Q000235:genetics*; D016189:Dystrophin / Q000235:genetics*; D007438:Introns; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D016189:Dystrophin