Cloning of Drosophila transcription factor Adf-1 reveals homology to Myb oncoproteins.

The Drosophila sequence-specific DNA binding protein, Adf-1, is capable of activating transcription of the alcohol dehydrogenase gene, Adh, and is implicated in the transcriptional control of other developmentally regulated genes. We have cloned the cDNA encoding Adf-1 by generating specific DNA probes deduced from partial amino acid sequence of the protein. Several cDNA clones encoding an extended open reading frame were isolated from a phage lambda library. The complete amino acid sequence of Adf-1 deduced from the longest cDNA reveals structural similarities to the putative helix-turn-helix DNA binding motif of Myb and Myb-related proteins. DNA sequence analysis of genomic clones and Northern blot analysis of mRNA suggest that Adf-1 is a single-copy gene encoding a 1.9-kb transcript. Purified recombinant Adf-1 expressed in Escherichia coli binds specifically to Adf-1 recognition sites and activates transcription of a synthetic Adh promoter in vitro in a manner indistinguishable from the protein purified from Drosophila. Temporally staged Drosophila embryos immunochemically stained with affinity-purified anti-Adf-1 antibodies indicate that Adf-1 protein is not detectable in very early embryos and does not appear to be maternally inherited. During later stages of embryogenesis, Adf-1 appears to be expressed in the nucleus of most somatic cells in the embryo with possibly higher concentrations found in some tissues.