Figure 1. MiR-8 is required for proper spatial patterning of pigment on adult female abdomens.

(A) Schematic representation of the genomic region surrounding the miR-8 locus on Chromosome 2R. The null allele miR-8^jk22 was generated with FLP/FRT mediated deletion using the FRT containing elements P{XP}d01682 and PBac{WH}f05125. MiR-8^jk22 lacks the indicated 5.6kb region containing the miR-8 hairpin between the two elements. The previously reported miR-8^Δ1 allele is missing the 400bp fragment indicated in the schematic (Karres et al., 2007). (B–E) Dorsal abdominal cuticle segments 5 and 6 (A5 and A6) from 4- to 6- day old adult Drosophila melanogaster females. The dorsal midline is in the center of each panel. Wild type (w¹¹¹⁸) flies were reared at 25°C (B) or 29°C (C). Flies homozygous for the miR-8^jk22 allele (D) or transheterozygous for the miR-8^Δ1 and miR-8^jk22 (E) were reared at 25°C. To control for genetic background, both miR-8^jk22 and miR-8^Δ1 lines were backcrossed to w¹¹¹⁸ flies for over 20 generations. (F) Percent pigmentation of A6 segments was determined by analyzing 15–20 cuticles for each of the indicated genotype/temperature combinations. Mean percent pigmentation is displayed, with error bars representing SEM. Multivariate analysis revealed a miR-8xtemperature interaction (ANOVA, F_2,98=15.24, p<0.001). Shared letters indicate no significant difference (Tukey post-hoc, α=0.05).