Hormonal and developmental specificities of transcription lie within a 1.5 kb region 5' to the ecdysone inducible Drosophila P1 gene.

P-element-mediated transformation was used to investigate 5' cis-acting regulatory sequences flanking the P1 gene of Drosophila melanogaster, which is selectively expressed in the fat body of late third instar larvae under the positive control of ecdysone. A hybrid gene was constructed by fusing a 1.5 kb DNA fragment directly adjacent to and including the first 25 transcribed bases of the P1 gene to the Escherichia coli xanthine guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (Ecogpt) gene itself linked at its 3' end to the SV40 t antigen splicing and polyadenylation sequences. Five transformed lines of D. melanogaster containing only one copy of the hybrid gene were established. In each of these lines the gpt sequence is transcribed with the same spatial, temporal and hormonal specificities as those of the P1 gene. This provides evidence that control elements essential for the ecdysone and developmentally regulated expression of P1 are located within a 1.5 kb region 5' to this gene.