Stripe-specific regulation of pair-rule genes by hopscotch, a putative Jak family tyrosine kinase in Drosophila

Abstract

We describe the characterization of the Drosophila gene, hopscotch (hop), which is required maternally for the establishment of the normal array of embryonic segments. In hop embryos, although expression of the gap genes appears normal, there are defects in the expression patterns of the pair-rule genes even-skipped, runt, and fushi tarazu, as well as the segment-polarity genes engrailed and wingless. We demonstrate that the effect of hop on the expression of these genes is stripe-specific. The hop gene encodes a putative nonreceptor tyrosine kinase of the Janus kinase family, based on an internal duplication of the catalytic domain. We present a model in which the Hop tyrosine kinase is involved in the control of pair-rule gene transcription in a stripe-specific manner. Our results provide the first evidence for stripe-specific regulation of pair-rule genes by a tyrosine kinase.