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Purine transport by Malpighian tubules of pteridine-deficient eye color mutants of Drosophila melanogaster

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Abstract

Uptakes of guanine into Malpighian tubules of wild-type Drosophila and the eye color mutants white (w), brown (bw), and pink-peach (p p) have been compared. Tubules for each of these mutants are unable to concentrate guanine intracellularly. The transport of xanthine and riboflavin is also deficient in w tubules. The transport of guanosine, adenine, hypoxanthine, and guanosine monophosphate is similar in wild-type and white Malpighian tubules. These data and other information about these mutants make it likely that these pteridine-deficient eye color mutants do not produce pigments because of the inability to transport a pteridine precursor. This view supports the hypothesis that mutants which lack both pteridine and ommochromes do so because precursors to both classes of pigments share a common transport system.

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This work was supported by Grant GM22366 from NIH.

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Sullivan, D.T., Bell, L.A., Paton, D.R. et al. Purine transport by Malpighian tubules of pteridine-deficient eye color mutants of Drosophila melanogaster . Biochem Genet 17, 565–573 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00498891

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00498891

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