DROSOPHILA-RELATED EXPRESSED SEQUENCES

The study of model organisms has been instrumental towards the elucida tion of the basic mechanisms of human biology. Drosophila melanogaster has been the target of extensive genetic analyses over the past 90 ye ars and a notable amount of information is known about its gene struct ure, gene regulation and gene function. The vast gene resource generat ed by the expressed sequence tags (ESTs) efforts was exploited to iden tify, using a bioinformatic approach, novel human and murine gene tran scripts homologous to Drosophila mutant genes. A systematic characteri zation of these genes, named Drosophila-related expressed sequences (D RES), was performed including genomic mapping in human and mouse and d etailed study of their expression pattern by RNA in situ hybridization experiments. Comparison between DRES genes and their putative partner s in Drosophila contributes to the understanding of their function in mammals and to the discovery of their possible role in disease.