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Functional conservation of a glucose-repressible amylase gene promoter from Drosophila virilis in Drosophila melanogaster

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Summary

Previous studies have demonstrated that the expression of the α-amylase gene is repressed by dietary glucose in Drosophila melanogaster. Here, we show that the α-amylase gene of a distantly related species, D. virilis, is also subject to glucose repression. Moreover, the cloned amylase gene of D. virilis is shown to be glucose repressible when it is transiently expressed in D. melanogaster larvae. This cross-species, functional conservation is mediated by a 330-bp promoter region of the D. virilis amylase gene. These results indicate that the promoter elements required for glucose repression are conserved between distantly related Drosophila species. A sequence comparison between the amylase genes of D. virilis and D. melanogaster shows that the promoter sequences diverge to a much greater degree than the coding sequences. The amylase promoters of the two species do, however, share small clusters of sequence similarity, suggesting that these conserved cis-acting elements are sufficient to control the glucose-regulated expression of the amylase gene in the genus Drosophila.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, 30 Marie Curie Street, KIN 6N5, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Charalambos Magoulas, Ada Loverre-Chyurlia, Sumaia Abukashawa, Laure Bally-Cuff & Donal A. Hickey

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  1. Charalambos Magoulas
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  2. Ada Loverre-Chyurlia
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  3. Sumaia Abukashawa
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  4. Laure Bally-Cuff
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  5. Donal A. Hickey
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Magoulas, C., Loverre-Chyurlia, A., Abukashawa, S. et al. Functional conservation of a glucose-repressible amylase gene promoter from Drosophila virilis in Drosophila melanogaster . J Mol Evol 36, 234–242 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00160478

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00160478

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