Developmental control of Drosophila yolk protein 1 gene by cis-acting DNA elements.

In this paper we have demonstrated that at least two tissue-specific cis-acting DNA elements are necessary for the normal developmental pattern of Drosophila yp1 gene expression. One of these elements is necessary for expression in the adult female follicle cells and the other is necessary for expression in adult female fat bodies. We have localized the fat body expression element to a 125-bp fragment that lies between nucleotides -196 and -321 of the yp1 gene. This small fragment has at least one of the characteristics of enhancer sequences because it can direct a heterologous Drosophila promoter to be transcribed with the yp1 fat body expression pattern.