Gene or accession: CG9045
Missed gene
Comments: There appears to be another gene just 5' of Myb (between Myb
and G-beta) that was not identified by the genome project scanning
programs. The complement of nt 148686-149581 of AE003500 encodes two
adjacent open reading frames (separated by a probable intron) that
predict a protein with significant homology to a family of AlkB-related
proteins. The best hit thus far is an EST from pig (BE232761.1) that
gives hits in the 7e-30 range with tblastx. There is a similarly
related EST from humans and also less closely related ESTs from other
species. In particular, there is a reasonably strong similarity at the
protein level to a gene from E. coli called AlkB that is involved in
DNA damage-induced repair of alkylated bases. There is no Drosophila
EST for the predicted fly gene in your database. However, in E. coli
this gene is likely DNA damage-inducible and the same may be true in
flies. This example suggests that a segment by segment tblastx of the
fly genome against the entire EST database may yield additional new
genes. I couldn't end this note without congratulating everyone at
BDGP and CELERA for an OUTSTANDING EFFORT! My own novice fly lab has
benefited tremendously from the Drosophila genome sequence and
annotations.
Gene or accession: CG9045
Missed gene
Comments: Further remarks on the existence of an AlkB homologue between G-beta
and Myb on 13F:
Actually, there is an EST in flybase (LD02396) that appears to cover this
AlkB-related gene (I hadn't searched your EST database for a while). The
EST sequence suggests that the mRNA goes from at least nt 149975 \-148622.
The open reading frame is likely to include at least from 149027 \- 148686
and from 149581 \- 149088 (based on aa homology), interrupted by a single
intron not present in the cDNA clone.