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Conservation and Sex-Specific Splicing of the transformer Gene in the Calliphorids Cochliomyia hominivorax, Cochliomyia macellaria and Lucilia sericata
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 functio...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3567074/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23409170 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056303 |
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author | Li, Fang Vensko, Steven P. Belikoff, Esther J. Scott, Maxwell J. |
author_facet | Li, Fang Vensko, Steven P. Belikoff, Esther J. Scott, Maxwell J. |
author_sort | Li, Fang |
collection | PubMed |
description | 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 choice of splice donor site in the first intron, with males using a site downstream of the site used in females. The tra genes all contain a single TRA/TRA2 site in the male exon and a cluster of four to five sites in the male intron. However, overall the sex-specific intron sequences are poorly conserved in closely related blowflies. The most conserved regions are around the exon/intron junctions, the 3′ end of the intron and near the cluster of TRA/TRA2 sites. We propose a model for sex specific regulation of tra splicing that incorporates the conserved features identified in this study. In L. sericata embryos, the male tra transcript was first detected at around the time of cellular blastoderm formation. RNAi experiments showed that tra is required for female development in L. sericata and C. macellaria. The isolation of the tra gene from the New World screwworm fly C. hominivorax, a major livestock pest, will facilitate the development of a “male-only” strain for genetic control programs. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3567074 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-35670742013-02-13 Conservation and Sex-Specific Splicing of the transformer Gene in the Calliphorids Cochliomyia hominivorax, Cochliomyia macellaria and Lucilia sericata Li, Fang Vensko, Steven P. Belikoff, Esther J. Scott, Maxwell J. PLoS One Research Article 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 choice of splice donor site in the first intron, with males using a site downstream of the site used in females. The tra genes all contain a single TRA/TRA2 site in the male exon and a cluster of four to five sites in the male intron. However, overall the sex-specific intron sequences are poorly conserved in closely related blowflies. The most conserved regions are around the exon/intron junctions, the 3′ end of the intron and near the cluster of TRA/TRA2 sites. We propose a model for sex specific regulation of tra splicing that incorporates the conserved features identified in this study. In L. sericata embryos, the male tra transcript was first detected at around the time of cellular blastoderm formation. RNAi experiments showed that tra is required for female development in L. sericata and C. macellaria. The isolation of the tra gene from the New World screwworm fly C. hominivorax, a major livestock pest, will facilitate the development of a “male-only” strain for genetic control programs. Public Library of Science 2013-02-07 /pmc/articles/PMC3567074/ /pubmed/23409170 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056303 Text en © 2013 Li et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Li, Fang Vensko, Steven P. Belikoff, Esther J. Scott, Maxwell J. Conservation and Sex-Specific Splicing of the transformer Gene in the Calliphorids Cochliomyia hominivorax, Cochliomyia macellaria and Lucilia sericata |
title | Conservation and Sex-Specific Splicing of the transformer Gene in the Calliphorids Cochliomyia hominivorax, Cochliomyia macellaria and Lucilia sericata
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title_full | Conservation and Sex-Specific Splicing of the transformer Gene in the Calliphorids Cochliomyia hominivorax, Cochliomyia macellaria and Lucilia sericata
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title_fullStr | Conservation and Sex-Specific Splicing of the transformer Gene in the Calliphorids Cochliomyia hominivorax, Cochliomyia macellaria and Lucilia sericata
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title_full_unstemmed | Conservation and Sex-Specific Splicing of the transformer Gene in the Calliphorids Cochliomyia hominivorax, Cochliomyia macellaria and Lucilia sericata
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title_short | Conservation and Sex-Specific Splicing of the transformer Gene in the Calliphorids Cochliomyia hominivorax, Cochliomyia macellaria and Lucilia sericata
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title_sort | conservation and sex-specific splicing of the transformer gene in the calliphorids cochliomyia hominivorax, cochliomyia macellaria and lucilia sericata |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3567074/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23409170 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056303 |
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