A 1.2kb PstI fragment from the pdm2 cDNA is expressed from an Hsp70 promoter. This fragment lacks usual ATG codon, and if the available internal ATG is used for initiation the resulting product would lack 277 amino acids from the N terminus. Only 8 amino acids upstream of the POU-specific domain will be included in the truncated protein.
Flies are wild type at 22oC. Cuticle preparations from homozygotes grown at 29oC show 16% of the embryos have segmentation defects, typically in abdominal segments 2 and 6. Temperature shift experiments show that the RP2/sib lineage defect follows a different timecourse than the segmentation defects.