Drosophila peroxiredoxin 5 is the second gene in a dicistronic operon

We identified a Drosophila homologue that belongs to a subfamily of the mammalian peroxiredoxin 5 genes. The Drosophila peroxiredoxin 5 (dPrx 5) gene corresponds to CG7217 (FlyBase nomenclature), and exhibits identical polarity to that of the nearby upstream CG7215 gene, for which the deduced amino acid sequence reveals an ubiquitin-like domain at the N-terminus. The tandem pattern of the arrangement of these two genes is well-conserved among the Drosophilids. In addition to CG7215 and dPrx5 gene-specific transcripts that could be transcribed independently from two distinct promoters, transcripts spanning both coding regions have been identified, leading to the characterization of this gene cluster as a dicistronic operon. The different transcripts exhibit stage-specific accumulation patterns. While the upstream CG7215 gene can be expressed from both mono- and dicistronic mRNAs, the downstream dPrx5 gene is likely to be expressed predominantly from its monocistronic transcripts.