Three hormone receptor-like Drosophila genes encode an identical DNA-binding finger

The putative finger domain of knirps (kni), a member of the gap class of segmentation genes, was used to isolate two sequence-related genes of Drosophila melanogaster under reduced stringency hybridization conditions. The two kni homologous genes map close to kni in the proximal portion of the third chromosome. One of them is the previously identified gene knirps-related (knrl), kni and knrl are spatially co-regulated in both early and late stages of embryogenesis. Their posterior domains of expression at blastoderm stage are under the control of the maternal pattern organizer gene nanos. In contrast, the expression of the second kni homologous gene is restricted to the late embryonic gonads. Due to its site of expression, we termed this gene 'embryonic gonad' (egon). In addition to the conserved DNA-binding domain, these three genes share an additional sequence of 19 amino acids, the kni-box, adjacent to the finger region. The identical N-terminal Cys/Cys finger encoded by each of the three genes suggests that they code for DNA-binding proteins which might bind to similar (or even identical) target sequences.