The Drosophila melanogaster gypsy transposable element encodes putative gene products homologous to retroviral proteins.

We determined the complete nucleotide sequence of the gypsy element present at the forked locus of Drosophila melanogaster in the f1 allele. The gypsy element shares more homology with vertebrate retroviruses than with the copia element of D. melanogaster or the Ty element of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, both in overall organization and at the DNA sequence level.

Characterization and developmental expression of a Drosophila ras oncogene.

We cloned a Drosophila melanogaster ras gene (Dmras64B) on the basis of its homology to the ras oncogen from Harvey murine sarcoma virus. This gene mapped at chromosomal position 64B on the left arm of the third chromosome. Sequencing of Dmras64B revealed extensive amino acid homology with the proteins encoded by the human and Saccharomyces cerevisiae ras genes.