Journal article
reduced ocelli Encodes the Leucine Rich Repeat Protein Pray For Elves in Drosophila melanogaster
Fly (Austin, Tex.), Vol.1(3), pp.146-152
2007
DOI: 10.4161/fly.4562
PMCID: PMC2668215
PMID: 18820435
Abstract
The ocelli are three simple photoreceptors on the vertex of the fruit fly head. We sought to identify the gene encoded by the classical ocellar mutant,
reduced ocelli
(
rdo)
. Deficiency and inversion breakpoint mapping and P-element induced male recombination analyses were performed and
Pray For Elves
(
PFE
; CG15151; Fbgn0032661) emerged as a promising candidate for the
rdo
phenotype. The
PFE
locus maps to polytene region 36E on chromosome 2L between
elfless
(Fbgn0032660) and
Arrestin 1
(Fbgn0000120). FlyBase annotation predicts that
PFE
encodes a serine/threonine kinase, yet protein prediction programs revealed no kinase domain. These analyses suggest that
PFE
simply encodes a leucine rich repeat molecule of unknown function, but presumably functions in nervous system protein-protein interaction. Two classical spontaneous alleles of
rdo
,
rdo
1
and
rdo
2
, were characterized and the underlying mutations result from a small deletion spanning exon 1/intron 1 and a
B104/roo
insertion into the 3′UTR of
PFE
, respectively. Transposase-mediated excisions of several P-elements inserted into the
PFE
locus revert the
rdo
phenotype and a full-length
PFE
cDNA is sufficient to rescue
rdo
. A Gal4 enhancer trap reveals a broad adult neural expression pattern for
PFE
. Our identification and initial characterization of the
rdo
locus will contribute to the understanding of neurogenesis and neural development in the simple photoreceptors of the Drosophila visual system.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- reduced ocelli Encodes the Leucine Rich Repeat Protein Pray For Elves in Drosophila melanogaster
- Creators
- Jason C CaldwellSarah K FinebergDaniel F Eberl
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Fly (Austin, Tex.), Vol.1(3), pp.146-152
- DOI
- 10.4161/fly.4562
- PMID
- 18820435
- PMCID
- PMC2668215
- ISSN
- 1933-6934
- eISSN
- 1933-6942
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2007
- Academic Unit
- Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Biology
- Record Identifier
- 9984070897002771
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