Sepsid even-skipped Enhancers Are Functionally Conserved in Drosophila Despite Lack of Sequence Conservation
Figure 5
Sepsid eve enhancers drive conserved expression patterns in Drosophila melanogaster embryos.
Expression patterns of eve stripe 2, stripe 3+7, stripe 4+6 and muscle-heart enhancers from sepsids S. cynipsea, T. putris and T. superba were compared to their D. melanogaster counterparts in transgenic D. melanogaster embryos by RNA in situ hybridization with digoxigenin-labeled antisense RNA probes against the reporter genes lacZ (A, D, G) and CFP (B,C,E,F,H,I,K,L), or staining with βGal antibodies (J). (A–C) Sepsid stripe 2 enhancers drive strong expression in an anterior stripe corresponding to D. melanogaster stripe 2. (D–F) Sepsid stripe 3+7 enhancers drive expression within the limits of D. melanogaster stripe 3 and 7, with additional expression in the posterior. (G–I) Sepsid stripe 4+6 enhancers drive expression within the limits of D. melanogaster stripes 4 and 6. (J–L) Sepsid MHE enhancers are expressed in metameric clusters in the dorsal mesoderm in stage, as in D. melanogaster. Embryos were imaged during cellularization and are oriented with anterior to the left and dorsal up.