Functional and bioinformatics analyses reveal conservation of cis-regulatory elements between sciaridae and drosophilidae

The sciarid DNA puff C4 BhC4‐1 gene is amplified and transcribed in salivary glands at the end of the larval stage. In transgenic Drosophila, the BhC4‐1 promoter drives transcription in prepupal salivary glands and in the ring gland of late embryos. A bioinformatics analysis has identified 162 sequences similar to distinct regions of the BhC4‐1 proximal promoter, which are predominantly located either in 5′ or 3′ regions or introns in the Drosophila melanogaster genome. A significant number of the identified sequences are found in the regulatory regions of Drosophila genes that are expressed in the salivary gland. Functional assays in Drosophila reveal that the BhC4‐1 proximal promoter contains both a 129 bp (−186/−58) salivary gland enhancer and a 67 bp (−253/−187) ring gland enhancer that drive tissue specific patterns of developmentally regulated gene expression, irrespective of their orientation. genesis 46:43–51, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.