Effects of deficiencies in the engrailed region of Drosophila melanogaster

The engrailed gene of Drosophila melanogaster is believed to be involved in control of determination and differentiation of posterior compartments. en1/en1 causes a partial transformation of the posterior compartment of wing and first leg to mirror-image anterior, which prompted the hypothesis that engrailed + is a "selector gene" required for the posterior pathway decision. The incomplete transformation was thought due to residual en+ activity in en1; a deletion of engrailed (en28) was constructed to determine if a complete transformation can occur. en28 is homozygous lethal and cell lethal. en28/en1 survives to adult stage, but causes a weaker transformation than en1/en1, indicating that en1 is not a simple hypomorph. A more distal deletion, en30, survives over en-lethal alleles. Both en30/en1 and en28/en30 survive to adult stage, but do not cause a stronger posterior to anterior transformation than en1/en1; thus this effect may be allele specific. New abnormalities included (1) transformation of the posterior wing blade to haltere, an effect dependent on the bx+ (but not pbx+) pseudoallele of the bithorax complex; (2) abnormal bristle pattern, tarsal fusion, and degenerate posterior claws of all legs. Although these abnormalities are posterior compartment specific, they are not expected of a "selector gene." Thus the function of engrailed may be more complex than originally believed.