Identification of Drosophila melanogaster Strain-Specific Sequence Variations in the Nepl15 Transcript of Oregon-R...

According to FlyBase, the Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) Neprilysin-like 15 (Nepl15) gene has only one annotated transcript and a 686-amino acid-long protein. However, Nepl15 transcripts exhibit organ- and sex-specific differential expression, and Nepl15 knock-out mutation results in sex-dependent contrasting phenotypes. Thus, we investigated whether unreported sex-specific Nepl15 transcripts exist. Our sequencing results of Nepl15 cDNA synthesized from the Oregon-R adult male and female RNA samples show a few changes in the codons, which alter the amino acid sequences in our samples. However, the changes do not impact the subcellular localization or overall Nepl15 protein structure as determined by bioinformatics analyses.