Sex-lethal (Sxl) is a gene found in Dipteran insects, named for its mutation phenotype in Drosophila melanogaster (P19339).[1][2] It is most closely related to the ELAV/HUD subfamily of splicing factors.[3]

IPR006546
Identifiers
SymbolSxl
InterProIPR006546
Alternative splicing of the Drosophila Transformer gene product.

In fruit flies, this protein participates in alternative splicing of the transformer gene, deciding the sex of the fly.[4] It induces female-specific alternative splicing of the transformer (tra) pre-mRNA by binding to the tra uridine-rich polypyrimidine tract at the non-sex-specific 3' splice site during the sex-determination process. SXL binds also to its own pre-mRNA and promotes female-specific alternative splicing.[5][6] SXL contains an N-terminal Gly/Asn-rich domain that may be responsible for the protein-protein interaction, and tandem RNA recognition motifs (RRMs) that show high preference to bind single-stranded, uridine-rich target RNA transcripts.[7]

References edit

  1. ^ Maine EM, Salz HK, Cline TW, Schedl P (December 1985). "The Sex-lethal gene of Drosophila: DNA alterations associated with sex-specific lethal mutations". Cell. 43 (2 Pt 1): 521–9. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(85)90181-3. PMID 3000609. S2CID 32594881.
  2. ^ Meise M, Hilfiker-Kleiner D, Dübendorfer A, Brunner C, Nöthiger R, Bopp D (April 1998). "Sex-lethal, the master sex-determining gene in Drosophila, is not sex-specifically regulated in Musca domestica" (PDF). Development. 125 (8): 1487–94. doi:10.1242/dev.125.8.1487. PMID 9502729.
  3. ^ Schütt C, Nöthiger R (February 2000). "Structure, function and evolution of sex-determining systems in Dipteran insects". Development. 127 (4): 667–77. doi:10.1242/dev.127.4.667. PMID 10648226.
  4. ^ Bell LR, Maine EM, Schedl P, Cline TW (December 1988). "Sex-lethal, a Drosophila sex determination switch gene, exhibits sex-specific RNA splicing and sequence similarity to RNA binding proteins". Cell. 55 (6): 1037–46. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(88)90248-6. PMID 3144435. S2CID 22691059.
  5. ^ Crowder SM, Kanaar R, Rio DC, Alber T (April 1999). "Absence of interdomain contacts in the crystal structure of the RNA recognition motifs of Sex-lethal". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 96 (9): 4892–7. Bibcode:1999PNAS...96.4892C. doi:10.1073/pnas.96.9.4892. PMC 21787. PMID 10220389.
  6. ^ Penalva LO, Sánchez L (September 2003). "RNA binding protein sex-lethal (Sxl) and control of Drosophila sex determination and dosage compensation". Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews. 67 (3): 343–59, table of contents. doi:10.1128/mmbr.67.3.343-359.2003. PMC 193869. PMID 12966139.
  7. ^ Samuels M, Deshpande G, Schedl P (June 1998). "Activities of the Sex-lethal protein in RNA binding and protein:protein interactions". Nucleic Acids Research. 26 (11): 2625–37. doi:10.1093/nar/26.11.2625. PMC 147605. PMID 9592147.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Pfam and InterPro: IPR006546