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. 2000 Aug;155(4):1841–1854. doi: 10.1093/genetics/155.4.1841

P-Element repression in Drosophila melanogaster by a naturally occurring defective telomeric P copy.

L Marin 1, M Lehmann 1, D Nouaud 1, H Izaabel 1, D Anxolabéhère 1, S Ronsseray 1
PMCID: PMC1461209  PMID: 10924479

Abstract

In Drosophila melanogaster, hybrid dysgenesis occurs in progeny from crosses between females lacking P elements and males carrying P elements scattered throughout the genome. We have genetically isolated a naturally occurring P insertion at cytological location 1A, from a Tunisian population. The Nasr'Allah-P(1A) element [NA-P(1A)] has a deletion of the first 871 bp including the P promoter. It is flanked at the 3' end by telomeric associated sequences and at the 5' end by a HeT-A element sequence. The NA-P(1A) element strongly represses dysgenic sterility and P transposition. However, when testing P-promoter repression, NA-P(1A) was unable to repress a germinally expressed P-lacZ construct bearing no 5'-homology with it. Conversely, a second P-lacZ construct, in which the fusion with lacZ takes place in exon 3 of P, was successfully repressed by NA-P(1A). This suggests that NA-P(1A) repression involves a homology-dependent component.

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Selected References

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