Naturally occurring variation in the restriction map of the amy region of Drosophila melanogaster.

The restriction maps of 85 alleles of the Amy region of Drosophila melanogaster from natural populations were surveyed. A subset of these were also scored for allozyme phenotype and adult enzyme activity of alpha-amylase. Large insertions were found in 12% of the alleles in a 15-kb region surrounding the two transcriptional units of the duplicated Amy locus. The low frequencies at which each of these large insertions were found are consistent with earlier reports of variation in other loci. Four small deletions were found in the region 5' to the Amy genes. Each was also rare in the population. Restriction site variation provided an estimate of per nucleotide heterozygosity of 0.006. Several statistically significant linkage disequilibria were observed between four polymorphic restriction sites and the allozymes. Adult alpha-amylase activity was correlated with the allozymes and with the polymorphism at one restriction site close to the transcriptional units.