What is gender specific splicing in Drosophila?

In females, SXL controls the splicing of tra to produce a functional TRA protein, which, together with TRA2, promotes female-specific splicing of the dsx and fru transcription factors that go on to direct female-specific development of somatic tissues.

Do Drosophila melanogaster genes exhibit alternate splicing?

Alternative splicing expands the coding capacity of metazoan genes, and it was largely genetic studies in the fruit-fly Drosophila melanogaster that established the principle that regulated alternative splicing results in tissue- and stage-specific protein isoforms with different functions in development.

Is alternative splicing tissue specific?

The role of alternative splicing is one of the great unanswered questions in cellular biology. There is strong evidence for alternative splicing at the transcript level, and transcriptomics experiments show that many splice events are tissue specific.

Which exon is skipped in female Drosophila due to alternative splicing of the SXL gene?

Sxl expression in embryonic stages. Exon 2 is spliced in in males (blue) and skipped in females (red).

How does alternative splicing occur?

Mechanisms of Alternative Splicing Regulation Fundamentally, alternative splicing occurs through the enhancing or silencing of exons or splice sites by modulating the assembly of the spliceosome on a pre-mRNA.

What does SXL gene do?

Sex-lethal (Sxl) is the master switch gene for somatic sex determination in Drosophila melanogaster. In XX animals, Sxl becomes activated and imposes female development; in X(Y) animals, Sxl remains inactive and male development ensues.

Is splicing tissue specific?

Alternative splicing is a vital process for regulating gene expression and promoting proteomic diversity. It plays a key role in tissue-specific expressed genes. This specificity is mainly regulated by splicing factors that bind to specific sequences called splicing regulatory elements (SREs).

What determines alternative splicing?

The inclusion or splicing of an alternative exon is therefore determined by combinatorial effects, cellular abundance, and competitive binding between SR activators and hnRNP inhibitors.

What are the results of TRA splicing when SXL protein is present?

Sxl protein promotes the splicing of tra pre-mRNA to make active Tra protein in females, while the default transcript of tra found in males encodes an inactive truncated protein. Active female Tra is itself a splicing factor and acts together with Transformer2 to generate female-specific forms of doublesex (dsx).

What is the role of neomycin resistance in generating knockin and knockout mice?

Currently, the neomycin-resistance gene, called NeoR, is a popular marker gene of choice for generating knockout mice. The right and left arms of the targeting vector facilitate homologous recombination between the targeting vector and the target gene, thereby enabling the NeoR gene to replace the target gene segment.