Ali, I., Ur Rehman, M., Rashid, F., Khan, S., Iqbal, A., Laixin, X., Ahmed, N.U., Swati, A.Z. (2010). Cis-regulatory elements affecting the Nanos gene promoter in the germline stem cells.  J. Biotechnol. 145(4): 323--329.

FBrf0209941

Research paper

Drosophila Nanos gene plays an important role in stem cell maintenance and body patterning. With the purpose of understanding the cis-regulatory machinery involved in the transcription of the nanos gene in the germline stem cells, we examined its promoter fragment from +97 to -708 relative to the transcription start site and identified enhancer elements located between position -108 and +97. Experiments with transgenic flies revealed that the minimal promoter (from -108 to +20) is sufficient in the germline stem cells for the GFP expression in transgenic Drosophila. Moreover, the flag-tagged nanos protein blotting experiments revealed that a short promoter fragment plus some sequences of the nos 5'UTR spanning -108 to +97 could efficiently drive the expression of the flag-tagged [Nos-mRNA-nos3'UTR] transgene in transgenic flies indicating that the cis-regulatory elements located between positions -108 and +97 of the nanos promoter are sufficient to fully transcribe the nanos mRNA. Deletion of the identified cis-acting sequences from the promoter rendered it non-functional as it could no longer transcribe the nanos mRNA in transgenic flies thus revealing the importance of these sequences for the transcription of the nanos gene.