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Lack of actin III in fibrillar flight muscle of flightless Drosophila mutant raised

Abstract

Actin heterogeneity is well known: within one vertebrate species up to six forms of actin, differing in isoelectric point, amino acid composition and antigenic sites have been described and their synthesis shown to be tissue specific1–8. In Drosophila melanogaster actin genes have been located at six distinct sites on the chromosomes9,10 and three forms of actin (synthesized and/or accumulated in different amounts in different tissues11–14) have been distinguished electrophoretically. In view of the obvious importance of actin in muscle, it was of interest to search in Drosophila for abnormalities of actin in flightless mutants which primarily affect fibrillar flight muscles, such as raised (rsd)14–20. Here we report that the actin pattern in two types of adult skeletal muscles is differently affected by the rsd mutation. Since rsd is located on the right arm of the third chromosome25, which is not the known position of the structural genes of actin9,10, we conclude that rsd is a regulatory gene.

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Lang, A., Wyss, C. & Eppenberger, H. Lack of actin III in fibrillar flight muscle of flightless Drosophila mutant raised. Nature 291, 506–508 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/291506a0

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