A trans-acting regulatory product necessary for expression of the Drosophila melanogaster 68C glue gene cluster.

The mutation l(1)npr-1 is located at cytological location 2B5 on the X chromosome in Drosophila melanogaster. We have found that this mutation causes absence of the normal product of the 2B5 locus and that it has the following phenotypes: the 68C glue puff on the third chromosome does not regress when mutant salivary glands are cultured in the presence of ecdysterone; the three 68C glue protein mRNAs are not synthesized; and a transformed Drosophila strain carrying both a normal resident 68C Sgs-3 gene and an introduced functional Sgs-3 gene with only a few kb of flanking sequences expresses neither Sgs-3 RNA if the l(1)npr-1 mutation is crossed into the stock. Thus the normal product of the l(1)npr-1 gene is required for regression of the 68C puff, and the l(1)npr-1 gene product allows expression of the Sgs-3 gene by interacting, either directly or indirectly, with DNA sequences near this glue protein gene.