Gain-of-function screen for genes that affect Drosophila muscle pattern formation.

This article reports the production of an EP-element insertion library with more than 3,700 unique target sites within the Drosophila melanogaster genome and its use to systematically identify genes that affect embryonic muscle pattern formation. We designed a UAS/GAL4 system to drive GAL4-responsive expression of the EP-targeted genes in developing apodeme cells to which migrating myotubes finally attach and in an intrasegmental pattern of cells that serve myotubes as a migration substrate on their way towards the apodemes. The results suggest that misexpression of more than 1.

The Drosophila gene Start1: a putative cholesterol transporter and key regulator of ecdysteroid synthesis.

Human metastatic lymph node 64 (MLN64) is a transmembrane protein that shares homology with the cholesterol-binding vertebrate steroid acute regulatory protein (StAR)-related lipid transfer domain (START) and is involved in cholesterol traffic and steroid synthesis. We identified a Drosophila melanogaster gene whose putative protein product shows extensive homology with MLN64 and that we name Start1 (FlyBase CG3522). The putative Start1 protein, derived from Start1 cDNA sequences, contains an additional 122 aa of unknown function within the StAR-related lipid transfer domain.