Locus 67B of Drosophila melanogaster contains seven, not four, closely related heat shock genes

Abstract

The four small hsp genes of Drosophila melanogaster as well as three genes regulated during development (genes 1, 2 and 3) are localized at the chromosomal locus 67B. The four small hsp genes share strong sequence homologies between themselves which were detected here by cross-hybridization. Under the same stringency conditions, each of the genes 1, 2 and 3 hybridize to some of the small hsp genes. By DNA sequencing of gene 1, the homology was localized within the same two regions already conserved between the small hsp genes: a central region of 83 amino acids, homologous with the mammalian alpha crystallin and the first 15 N-terminal amino acids. The transcriptional inducibility of the genes 1, 2 and 3 was also compared with that of the four small hsp genes during various stages of Drosophila development at either the normal growth temperature or after a heat shock. We confirm previous reports on the developmental patterns of all seven genes and find moreover that genes 1, 2 and 3 are heat-shock inducible at any of the stages tested. We conclude that genes 1, 2 and 3 are also heat shock genes. Therefore, the locus 67B contains seven, not four, small heat shock genes.