Binding of the Drosophila Sex-lethal gene product to the alternative splice site of transformer primary transcript (original) (raw)

Nature volume 344, pages 461–463 (1990)Cite this article

Abstract

SOMATIC sexual differentiation in Drosophila melanogaster is accomplished by a hierarchy of genes1–5 of which one, _Sex-lethal (Sxl)_6,7, is required for the functional female-specific splicing of the transcripts of the immediately downstream regulatory gene, transformer (tra). The first exon of the tra primary transcript is spliced to one of two acceptor sites. Splicing to the upstream site yields a messenger RNA which is neither sex-specific nor func-tional, but that produced after splicing to the downstream acceptor site yields a functional female-specific mRNA. Here we address the question of how the Sxl gene product determines the alternative splicing of tra primary transcripts. One suggestion is that non-sex-specific splicing to the upstream acceptor is blocked in female flies by sex-specific factors8, but neither the identity of the female-specific factors nor the mechanism of the blockage has been specified. We have now performed co-transfection experiments in which Sxl complementary DNA and the tra gene are expressed in Drosophila Kc cells. Moreover, we find that female _Sxl_-encoded protein binds specifically to the tra transcript at or near the non-sex-specific acceptor site, implying that the female Sxl gene product is the _trans_-acting factor that regulates the alternative splicing.

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Author notes

  1. Yoshiro Shimura: To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606, Japan
    Kunio Inoue, Kazuyuki Hoshijima, Hiroshi Sakamoto & Yoshiro Shimura

Authors

  1. Kunio Inoue
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  2. Kazuyuki Hoshijima
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  3. Hiroshi Sakamoto
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  4. Yoshiro Shimura
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Inoue, K., Hoshijima, K., Sakamoto, H. et al. Binding of the Drosophila Sex-lethal gene product to the alternative splice site of transformer primary transcript.Nature 344, 461–463 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1038/344461a0

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