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Molecular and Cellular Biology, June 1999, p. 4405-4413, Vol. 19, No. 6
0270-7306/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

The Drosophila Bruton's Tyrosine Kinase (Btk) Homolog Is Required for Adult Survival and Male Genital Formation

Kotaro Baba,1,2 Aya Takeshita,3 Kei Majima,3 Ryu Ueda,1 Shunzo Kondo,1 Naoto Juni,3 and Daisuke Yamamoto1,3,*,dagger

ERATO Yamamoto Behavior Genes Project3 and Developmental Genetics Group,1 Mitsubishi Kasei Institute of Life Sciences, Machida, Tokyo 194-8511, and Department of Physics, Tokyo University, Hongo, Tokyo 113-0033,2 Japan

Received 29 October 1998/Returned for modification 4 December 1998/Accepted 23 February 1999

We isolated a Drosophila fickleP (ficP) mutant with a shortened copulatory duration and reduced adult-stage life span. The reduced copulatory duration is ascribable to incomplete fusion of the left and right halves of the apodeme that holds the penis during copulation. ficP is an intronic mutation occurring in the Btk gene, a gene which encodes two forms (type 1 and type 2) of a Bruton's tyrosine kinase (Btk) family cytoplasmic tyrosine kinase as a result of alternative exon usage. The ficP mutation prevents the formation of the type 2 isoform but leaves expression of the type 1 transcript intact. Ubiquitous overexpression of the wild-type cDNA by using a heat shock 70 promoter during the late larval or pupal stages rescued the life span and genital defects in the mutant, respectively, establishing the causal relationship between the ficP phenotypes and the Btk gene mutation. The stage specificity of the rescuing ability suggests that the Btk gene is required for the development of male genitalia and substrates required for adult survival.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: ERATO Yamamoto Behavior Genes Project at Mitsubishi Kasei Institute of Life Sciences, 11 Minamiooya, Machida, Tokyo 194-8511, Japan. Phone: 81-427-21-2334. Fax: 81-427-21-2850. E-mail: daichan{at}fly.erato.jst.go.jp.

dagger Present address: School of Human Sciences, Waseda University, Tokorozawa, Saitama 359-1192, Japan.

Molecular and Cellular Biology, June 1999, p. 4405-4413, Vol. 19, No. 6
0270-7306/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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