Figure 1.

Phylogeny and expression of Drosophila neprilysins. A phylogenetic tree of the 24 known D. melanogaster M13 class proteases based on protein sequence similarity. The proteins fall into three distinct clades. Mapping the reproductive tract expression of each gene onto the tree reveals broad expression in the female RT (shaded and solid) and enrichment of male expression (open) in the clade that contains Nep1–5. The same clade also demonstrates enrichment for brain (red) and abdominal-thoracic ganglion expression (hatched).