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Cloning and characterization of the vermilion gene of Drosophila melanogaster

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Summary

A clone carrying the vermilion (v) gene of D. melanogaster was isolated from a genomic DNA library using cloned rat liver cDNA sequences for tryptophan oxygenase as the probe. DNA from different vermilion mutants (four of spontaneous origin and three X-ray induced) was examined by Southern blotting using sequences from the Drosophila clone as probes. Three of the spontaneous mutants contain DNA insertions; no change was detected in the fourth. For the X-ray induced mutants, one shows an insertion, one a deletion and the other no change. All the changes in the mutants occur within a 1.3 kb region in the clone. The same region hybridizes to sequences in the rat cDNA clones. The three mutants which are suppressible by mutations at the suppressor-of-sable locus each contain the same DNA insertion (approx. 7.2 kb) at or very close to the same site in the vermilion region. In the case of the v 1 mutant, we have shown that the insert is the transposable element 412. Two transcripts from the vermilion region of the genome have been detected. The level of one of these is greatly reduced in the v 1 mutant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, The Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T., Australia

    Amanda R. Walker, A. J. Howells & R. G. Tearle

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  1. Amanda R. Walker
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  2. A. J. Howells
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  3. R. G. Tearle
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Communicated by M.M. Green

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Walker, A.R., Howells, A.J. & Tearle, R.G. Cloning and characterization of the vermilion gene of Drosophila melanogaster . Mol Gen Genet 202, 102–107 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00330524

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00330524

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