Chandar, M., Harclerode, E., Kim, E., Marsh, J.J.S., Moore, A., Moragne Iii, W.E., Mukhamedyarova, D.R., Narsinghani, I., Powell, C.J., Pryor, R., Subramani, R., Blazek, G.M., Chandra, M.I., Ramesh, A., Fogerson, S.M., Guerrero-Altamirano, T., Spana, E.P. (2026). The melanized (mel) locus of Drosophila melanogaster is a mutation in CG17065, an N-acetylglucosamine-6-phosphate deacetylase.  MicroPubl Biol 2026(): .

FBrf0265697

Research paper

Mutations in the melanized (mel) gene of Drosophila melanogaster display darker body pigmentation and an enhanced trident pattern on the notum. By complementation, we localized the gene underlying mel to CG17065 , which encodes an N-acetylglucosamine-6-phosphate deacetylase. We find that mel [1] is a missense mutation in a ligand-binding amino acid and that mel [1] fails to complement a protein trap allele of CG17065. Using this allele, we find mel /CG17065 is ubiquitously expressed across larval and ovariole tissues. N-acetylglucosamine-6-phosphate deacetylase is predicted to act as an antagonist to the production of UDP-GlcNAc, the precursor for chitin biosynthesis and O- and N-linked glycosylation.

PMC13261557 (PMC) (EuropePMC)