Figure 1

Conservation of the E(spl)-C in Drosophilids. A) The E(spl)-C is highly conserved in Drosophilids with regard to gene number and transcript orientation (arrows). The size of the complex is also almost the same; in D. pseudoobscura (D. pseu) it is only slightly larger than in D. melanogaster (D. mel). The smallest seems to be the D. virilis (D. vir) complex, however, the virilis sequence was not completed at the time. The best identity at protein level is found between the Gro orthologs (purple) followed by the bHLH proteins (red). Interestingly the proteins of the centrally located bHLH genes Mγ, Mβ and M3 (framed blue) are best conserved. Higher identities are seen between the melanogaster and pseudoobscura orthologs than between the ones of D. melanogaster and D. virilis, with the exception of M7 (blue circle). The worst conserved member of the complex is M1. (Numbers give % identity between the proteins). B) Alignment of the Mγ and (C) M7 orthologs. The bHLH (purple) and orange domains are the best conserved parts of the orthologs. The M7 sequences labelled with the black box are unexpectedly better conserved in D. virilis than in D. pseudoobscura compared with D. melanogaster. Identical residues are marked in blue; red shows highly related and yellow similar residues.