Conservation and sex-specific splicing of the transformer gene in the calliphorids Cochliomyia hominivorax, Cochliomyia macellaria and Lucilia sericata.

ABSTRACT: Transformer (TRA) promotes female development in several dipteran species including the Australian sheep blowfly Lucilia cuprina, the Mediterranean fruit fly, housefly and Drosophila melanogaster. tra transcripts are sex-specifically spliced such that only the female form encodes full length functional protein. The presence of six predicted TRA/TRA2 binding sites in the sex-specific female intron of the L. cuprina gene suggested that tra splicing is auto-regulated as in medfly and housefly. With the aim of identifying conserved motifs that may play a role in tra sex-specific splicing, here we have isolated and characterized the tra gene from three additional blowfly species, L. sericata, Cochliomyia hominivorax and C. macellaria. The blowfly adult male and female transcripts differ in the

SUBMITTER: Li F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3567074 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature