THE ANOPHELES-ALBIMANUS WHITE GENE - MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF THE GENE AND A SPONTANEOUS WHITE GENE MUTATION

We have cloned and characterized the white gene of Anopheles albimanus . Comparison of the deduced amino acid sequence of this white gene wit h its homologs from six species of Diptera show that the An, albimanus gene is most similar to the white gene of An. gambiae (92% identity). A spontaneous white-eyed mutant An. albimanus was caused by an approx imately 10 kb insertion into a CT dinucleotide repeat region of intron 2 of the white locus. The flanks of this insertion are long (at least 400 bp), nearly perfect inverted terminal repeat sequences. This clon ed white gene should be useful as a marker for germ line transformatio n of An. albimanus.