Expression of a reporter gene resembles that of its neighbour: an insertion in the hairy gene of Drosophila

Random insertions of a promotor fused to a reporter gene, such as Lac-Z, reveal regulatory sequences that confer temporal and spatial patterns of gene expression in eukaryotes. These patterns may reflect the activity of a neighbouring gene and thus lead to the isolation of new genes essential for normal development. Here, we demonstrate that this hypothesis is true for an insertion into the well characterized segmentation gene, hairy, in Drosophila. The insertion is homozygous lethal and fails to complement other hairy alleles, giving the phenotype described for hairy mutations. The insertion is located at 66D on the polytene chromosome map, is within 300-600 bp 5' to the first hairy exon, and is orientated in the same sense (5'-3') as the hairy transcription unit. Expression of β-galactosidase (β-gal), deriving from the insertion, follows closely the spatio-temporal patterns of expression of hairy gene product during embryogenesis. In addition, other sites of β-galactosidase expression are shown in the third larval instar stage and in the adult ovary. The results show that some insertions, giving restricted patterns of reporter gene expression, will reflect the temporo-spatial activity of a nearby gene.