FUNCTIONAL-ANALYSIS OF DROSOPHILA AND MAMMALIAN CUT PROTEINS IN FLIES

The cut locus acts as a bimodal switch controlling cell fate in the pe ripheral nervous system of Drosophila and is also required for the dev elopment of the wing margin. It encodes a protein, Cut, that contains an atypical homeodomain and three copies of a new motif which can bind DNA in vitro. The human protein CDP and the murine protein Cux have r ecently been isolated as DNA-binding activities and they are structura lly related to Cut. We show that ectopic expression of Cut, CDP, or Cu x similarly affects embryonic sensory organ development and can rescue a wing scalloping mutant phenotype associated with loss of cut expres sion along the prospective wing margins. This suggests that the functi on of cut is evolutionarily conserved. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.