de Lorenzi, M., Ali, N., Saari, G., Henry, C., Wilcox, M.E., Bienz, M. (1988). Evidence that the Abdominal-B r element function is conferred by a trans-regulatory homeoprotein. EMBO J. 7: 3223--3231.
FlyBase ID
FBrf0047944
Publication Type
Research paper
Abstract
The Abdominal-B gene is a homeotic gene located in the distal-most region of the bithorax complex (BX-C). Based on complementation analysis it has been proposed that the gene contains two separable genetic elements, called the m and r elements. The r element has a chiefly regulatory function confined to parasegment 14. In a reverse Northern screen of the distal-most BX-C DNA, we found four distinct areas that are transcribed in the embryo. One of the transcripts spans a large genomic region which, upon disruption by rearrangement breakpoints, causes loss of r element function. This transcript is expressed in the early embryo in a single domain apparently corresponding to parasegment 14. We propose that the small homeoprotein encoded by the transcript acts as a trans-regulator to confer r element function.
