dUTPase expression correlates with cell division potential in Drosophila melanogaster.
dUTP pyrophosphatase (dUTPase) is a dNTP-sanitizing enzyme that prevents the appearance of potentially harmful uracil bases in DNA by hydrolyzing cellular dUTP. This function of dUTPase is found to be essential in many organisms including Drosophila melanogaster. Previously, we showed that the expression pattern of dUTPase determines the extent of uracil accumulation in the genome of different tissues. We wished to find the regulatory mechanism that eventually leaves a set of tissues with a uracil-free and intact genome. We found that the expression pattern established by the promoter of Drosophila dUTPase overlaps with mRNA and protein expression, excluding the involvement of other post-transcriptional contributions. This promoter was found to be active in primordial tissues, such as in the imaginal discs of larvae, in the larval brain and in reproductive organs. In the case of brain and imaginal tissues, we observed that the promoter activity depends on a DNA replication-related element motif, the docking site of DNA replication-related element binding factor, which is known as a transcriptional activator of genes involved in replication and proliferation. These results suggest that dUTPase expression is fine-tuned to meet the requirements of DNA synthesis in tissues where the maintenance of genome integrity is of high importance.
Institute of Enzymology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary.
András
A
Horváth
Institute of Enzymology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary.
Júlia
J
Batki
Institute of Genetics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged, Hungary.
László
L
Henn
Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.
Tamás
T
Lukacsovich
Institute of Enzymology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary.|Department of Applied Biotechnology and Food Sciences, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary.
Gergely
G
Róna
Institute of Genetics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged, Hungary.
Miklós
M
Erdélyi
Institute of Enzymology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary.|Department of Applied Biotechnology and Food Sciences, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary.
Beáta G
BG
Vértessy
D000818:Animals; D002455:Cell Division / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D049109:Cell Proliferation / Q000502:physiology; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000166:cytology* / Q000235:genetics*; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D011755:Pyrophosphatases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*
D011755:Pyrophosphatases; C020020:dUTP pyrophosphatase
DNA replication-related element; dUTPase; differentiation; proliferation; transcription