The cuticle proteins of Drosophila melanogaster: Stage specificity☆

[摘要] Fivestage-specificcuticlesareproducedduringthedevelopmentofDrosophila.Urea-solubleproteinswereextractedfromeachdevelopmentalstageandcomparedbygelelectrophoresis.Proteinsfromfirstandsecondinstarcuticleareidenticalexceptforminordifferencesintwoproteins.Eachsubsequentstage,thirdinstar,pupa,andadult,hasauniquesetofcuticleproteins.Qualitativechangeswithinstagesareseeninproteinsfromthirdinstarandadultcuticle.Thirdinstarcuticleproteinscanbedividedinto“early”[proteins2a,3,4,5,7,and8]and“late”[proteins2and1]groups.Adultcuticleproteinschangeinrelativeamountsduringpharateadultdevelopmentandchangemobilityateclosion.Thelowerabdominalpupalcuticlelacksaproteinfoundinthepupalcuticlecoveringtheheadandthorax.Cuticleproteinsfromeachstageareimmunologicallyrelated.Nonetheless,electrophoreticvariantsofthreelarvalproteinsdonotaffectanymajorchangesintheelectrophoreticmobilityofproteinsfromotherstages.Weproposethateachstage(exceptfirstandsecondinstar)hasproteinsencodedbydiscretegenes.

[学科分类] 生物科学（综合）