The Drosophila gene twister, an orthologue of the yeast helicase SKI2, is differentially expressed during development

We have identified and characterized a Drosophila orthologue of SK12, which , in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. is one of the key components in the cytoplas mic 3 ' -5 ' decay of mRNA. The Drosophila orthologue (twister, tst), is ex pressed as two transcripts which differ in the lengths of their 3 ' -UTRs, with the smaller transcript being particularly abundant in 0-2 h embryos an d the larger transcript reaching its highest levels in 6-8 h embryos. TST p rotein is expressed in two forms which are differentially expressed in adul t tissues and throughout development. Differential expression of TST may mo dulate activity of the mRNA turnover pathway and could have a major impact on the expression of target RNAs. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. Al l rights reserved.