The gene invected affects several developmental adaptive traits in Drosophila melanogaster

PETINO ZAPALA ALEJANDRA; MENSCH JULIÁN; CARREIRA VALERIA; FANARA JUAN JOSÉ

Santa Cruz, Chile

Congreso; V International Meeting of the Latin American Society for Developmental Biology; 2010

Latin American Society for Developmental Biology

Studying the genetic basis that controls early developmental processes is fundamental tounderstand the genetic architecture of adaptive traits. In holometabolous insects which grow inephemeral habitats, some traits determined during development are key to survival untilreproductive stage, being subject to selective pressures. Some of these traits are developmental time (DT), pupation height (PH) and adult body size (BS). Using Drosophila melanogaster strains carrying P-elements, our group found several candidate genes that orchestrate the expression of DT and BS. One of the mutants that showed alterations in all those traits harbors an insertion within the transcription factor gene invected, paralog of the pair-rule gene engrailed. In this work we mobilized the P-element to restore the wild-type phenotypes in order to validate the candidate gene invected. Our results validate the pleiotropic effects of this gene in several developmental adaptive traits