title: Functional conservation of the Drosophila gooseberry gene and its evolutionary alleles.
abstract: The Drosophila Pax gene gooseberry (gsb) is required for development of the larval cuticle and CNS, survival to adulthood, and male fertility. These functions can be rescued in gsb mutants by two gsb evolutionary alleles, gsb-Prd and gsb-Pax3, which express the Drosophila Paired and mouse Pax3 proteins under the control of gooseberry cis-regulatory region. Therefore, both Paired and Pax3 proteins have conserved all the Gsb functions that are required for survival of embryos to fertile adults, despite the divergent primary sequences in their C-terminal halves. As gsb-Prd and gsb-Pax3 uncover a gsb function involved in male fertility, construction of evolutionary alleles may provide a powerful strategy to dissect hitherto unknown gene functions. Our results provide further evidence for the essential role of cis-regulatory regions in the functional diversification of duplicated genes during evolution.
authors.affiliation: College of Veterinary Medicine, Northwest Agriculture & Forest University, Yangling, Shaanxi, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xue
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D017124:Conserved Sequence / Q000502:physiology; D004330:Drosophila / Q000196:embryology / Q000235:genetics*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D004625:Embryo, Nonmammalian; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005298:Fertility / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D000072041:PAX3 Transcription Factor; D051761:Paired Box Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D010641:Phenotype; D012737:Sex Factors; D015534:Trans-Activators / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D000072041:PAX3 Transcription Factor; D051761:Paired Box Transcription Factors; D015534:Trans-Activators; C404810:gsb protein, Drosophila; C489935:prd protein, Drosophila; C068686:Pax3 protein, mouse