Controlled expression of Drosophila homeobox loci using the Hostile takeover system.

Background: Hostile takeover (Hto) is a Drosophila protein trapping system that allows the investigator to both induce a gene and tag its product. The Hto transposon carries a GAL4-regulated promoter expressing an exon encoding a FLAG-mCherry tag. Upon expression, the Hto exon can splice to a downstream genomic exon, generating a fusion transcript and tagged protein.

Inducible protein traps with dominant phenotypes for functional analysis of the Drosophila genome.

The Drosophila melanogaster genome has been extensively characterized, but there remains a pressing need to associate gene products with phenotypes, subcellular localizations, and interaction partners. A multifunctional, Minos transposon-based protein trapping system called Hostile takeover (Hto) was developed to facilitate in vivo analyses of endogenous genes, including live imaging, purification of protein complexes, and mutagenesis. The Hto transposon features a UAS enhancer with a basal promoter, followed by an artificial exon 1 and a standard 5' splice site.

abd-A regulation by the iab-8 noncoding RNA.

The homeotic genes in Drosophila melanogaster are aligned on the chromosome in the order of the body segments that they affect. The genes affecting the more posterior segments repress the more anterior genes. This posterior dominance rule must be qualified in the case of abdominal-A (abd-A) repression by Abdominal-B (Abd-B).