Positional cloning of silkworm white egg 2 (w-2) locus shows functional conservation and diversification of ABC transporters for pigmentation in insects.
| Autor: | Tatematsu K; National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8634, Japan., Yamamoto K, Uchino K, Narukawa J, Iizuka T, Banno Y, Katsuma S, Shimada T, Tamura T, Sezutsu H, Daimon T |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Zdroj: | Genes to cells : devoted to molecular & cellular mechanisms [Genes Cells] 2011 Apr; Vol. 16 (4), pp. 331-42. Date of Electronic Publication: 2011 Feb 07. |
| DOI: | 10.1111/j.1365-2443.2011.01490.x |
| Abstrakt: | The white, scarlet and brown genes of Drosophila melanogaster encode three half-type ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters. In Drosophila, precursors of ommochromes and pteridines are transported by White/Scarlet and White/Brown heterodimers, respectively. The white egg 2 (w-2) mutant of the silkworm, Bombyx mori, has white eggs and eyes because of lack of ommochrome granules in the serosa and eyes. Here, we report that the silkworm w-2 locus encodes an ortholog of Drosophila scarlet. Our results indicate that Bombyx Scarlet forms a heterodimer with Bombyx White to transport ommochrome precursors, suggesting that formation of a White/Scarlet heterodimer and its involvement in the transport of ommochrome precursors are evolutionarily ancient and widely conserved traits in insects. Contrary to dipteran insects, white and scarlet were juxtaposed in a head-to-tail orientation in the silkworm genome, suggesting that the origin of white and scarlet was a tandem duplication of their ancestral transporter gene. In Bombyx, White is also essential for the transport of uric acid in larval epidermis. However, our results suggest that a Bombyx White/Scarlet heterodimer is not involved in this process. Our results emphasize the functional conservation and diversification of half-type ABC transporter families in insects, which may contribute to their extremely diverse color patterns. (© 2011 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2011 by the Molecular Biology Society of Japan/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.) |
| Databáze: | MEDLINE |
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