Alternative trans-splicing of constant and variable exons of a Drosophila axon guidance gene, lola
Abstract
longitudinals lacking (lola) is a complex Drosophila gene encoding at least 20 protein isoforms,each bearing the same N-terminal constant region linked to a different C-terminal variable region. Different isoforms specify different aspects of axon growth and guidance. We show here that lola mRNAs are generated by alternative trans-splicing of exons sequentially encoded by the same DNA strand. Chromosomal pairing facilitates interallelic trans-splicing,allowing complementation between mutations in the constant and those in the variable exons. We demonstrate that at least one variable exon is transcribed from its own promoter,and trans-spliced to the constant exons transcribed separately.
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Footnotes
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Article published online ahead of print. Article and publication date are at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.1137303.
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Supplemental Material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.
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↵3 Corresponding author. E-MAIL aigaki-toshiro{at}c.metro-u.ac.jp; FAX 81-426-77-2559.
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- Accepted August 20, 2003.
- Received July 28, 2003.
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press