Skip to main content
PMC home page
Genetics logoLink to Genetics
. 1988 Nov;120(3):713–723. doi: 10.1093/genetics/120.3.713

Structure and Evolution of the Adh Genes of Drosophila Mojavensis

P W Atkinson 1, L E Mills 1, W T Starmer 1, D T Sullivan 1
PMCID: PMC1203550  PMID: 3224808

Abstract

The nucleotide sequence of the Adh region of Drosophila mojavensis has been completed and the region found to contain a pseudogene, Adh-2 and Adh-1 arranged in that order. Comparison of the sequence divergence of these genes to one another and to the Adh region of Drosophila mulleri and other species has allowed the development of a model for the evolution of the duplication of the Adh genes. There have been two major events. An initial duplication of an Adh gene whose dual promoter structure was similar to Drosophila melanogaster, resulted in a species with two Adh genes, one of which may have had only a proximal promoter. A second duplication of this gene generated an Adh region containing three genes. It is proposed that one of these is the ancestral gene having dual promoters, while the other two possess only proximal promoters. Subsequent events have resulted in both a change in the regulation of Adh-2 such that it is expressed as if it had a ``distal'' type promoter and the mutational inactivation of the most upstream gene resulting in the creation of a pseudogene. The sequence of the D. mojavensis Adh region has also revealed the presence of an element which is composed of juxtaposed inverted imperfectly repeated elements. There is a surprising and not fully explainable strong similarity of the nucleotide sequence of the 5' flanking region of the pseudogene in D. mojavensis and D. mulleri.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (1.2 MB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Batterham P., Gritz E., Starmer W. T., Sullivan D. T. Biochemical characterization of the products of the Adh loci of Drosophila mojavensis. Biochem Genet. 1983 Oct;21(9-10):871–883. doi: 10.1007/BF00483946. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Benyajati C., Spoerel N., Haymerle H., Ashburner M. The messenger RNA for alcohol dehydrogenase in Drosophila melanogaster differs in its 5' end in different developmental stages. Cell. 1983 May;33(1):125–133. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(83)90341-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Biggin M. D., Gibson T. J., Hong G. F. Buffer gradient gels and 35S label as an aid to rapid DNA sequence determination. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1983 Jul;80(13):3963–3965. doi: 10.1073/pnas.80.13.3963. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Bodmer M., Ashburner M. Conservation and change in the DNA sequences coding for alcohol dehydrogenase in sibling species of Drosophila. 1984 May 31-Jun 6Nature. 309(5967):425–430. doi: 10.1038/309425a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Fischer J. A., Maniatis T. Regulatory elements involved in Drosophila Adh gene expression are conserved in divergent species and separate elements mediate expression in different tissues. EMBO J. 1986 Jun;5(6):1275–1289. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1986.tb04357.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Fischer J. A., Maniatis T. Structure and transcription of the Drosophila mulleri alcohol dehydrogenase genes. Nucleic Acids Res. 1985 Oct 11;13(19):6899–6917. doi: 10.1093/nar/13.19.6899. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Heberlein U., England B., Tjian R. Characterization of Drosophila transcription factors that activate the tandem promoters of the alcohol dehydrogenase gene. Cell. 1985 Jul;41(3):965–977. doi: 10.1016/s0092-8674(85)80077-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Hong G. F. A systemic DNA sequencing strategy. J Mol Biol. 1982 Jul 5;158(3):539–549. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(82)90213-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Kassis J. A., Poole S. J., Wright D. K., O'Farrell P. H. Sequence conservation in the protein coding and intron regions of the engrailed transcription unit. EMBO J. 1986 Dec 20;5(13):3583–3589. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1986.tb04686.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Li W. H., Gojobori T., Nei M. Pseudogenes as a paradigm of neutral evolution. Nature. 1981 Jul 16;292(5820):237–239. doi: 10.1038/292237a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Mills L. E., Batterham P., Alegre J., Starmer W. T., Sullivan D. T. Molecular genetic characterization of a locus that contains duplicate Adh genes in Drosophila mojavensis and related species. Genetics. 1986 Feb;112(2):295–310. doi: 10.1093/genetics/112.2.295. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Miyata T., Hayashida H. Extraordinarily high evolutionary rate of pseudogenes: evidence for the presence of selective pressure against changes between synonymous codons. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1981 Sep;78(9):5739–5743. doi: 10.1073/pnas.78.9.5739. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Miyata T., Yasunaga T., Nishida T. Nucleotide sequence divergence and functional constraint in mRNA evolution. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1980 Dec;77(12):7328–7332. doi: 10.1073/pnas.77.12.7328. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Pfeifer K., Prezant T., Guarente L. Yeast HAP1 activator binds to two upstream activation sites of different sequence. Cell. 1987 Apr 10;49(1):19–27. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(87)90751-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Potter S. S. DNA sequence of a foldback transposable element in Drosophila. Nature. 1982 May 20;297(5863):201–204. doi: 10.1038/297201a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Schaeffer S. W., Aquadro C. F. Nucleotide sequence of the Adh gene region of Drosophila pseudoobscura: evolutionary change and evidence for an ancient gene duplication. Genetics. 1987 Sep;117(1):61–73. doi: 10.1093/genetics/117.1.61. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Wilbur W. J., Lipman D. J. Rapid similarity searches of nucleic acid and protein data banks. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1983 Feb;80(3):726–730. doi: 10.1073/pnas.80.3.726. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Genetics are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

RESOURCES