THE SEX-PEPTIDE GENE (ACP70A) IS DUPLICATED IN DROSOPHILA-SUBOBSCURA

A 3.1-kb region of Drosophila subobscura homologous to the Acp70A regi on of D. melanogaster, which contains the sex-peptide gene, was cloned and sequenced. This region contains an approximately 600-bp duplicati on that includes the sex-peptide and its 5' and 3' flanking regions. T he preproteins are 54 and 56 amino acids long, respectively las compar ed to 55 amino acids in D. melanogaster), and each includes a 19-amino -acid-long signal peptide. The C-terminal part of the mature peptide i s highly conserved between D. melanogaster and the two copies of D. su bobscura. In this species, both copies of the gene are transcribed and , like in D. melanogaster, only expressed in males. The duplicated reg ion includes 300 bp upstream of the gene that would therefore seem suf ficient for their expression in males. This region presents at its 5' end a stretch 93-bp that has a high similarity with the corresponding region of D. melanogaster and could be part of a still unidentified re gulatory element of these genes. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.