Drosophilia alpha-tubulin genes and their transcription patterns

There are four different alpha-tubulin genes in D. melanogaster DNA; three of them appear as single copies and the other is present as either one or two copies in the haploid genome. The transcripts of three of these genes were examined. Each of them is complementary to a transcript of different length, implying that each is transcribed. Since these transcripts are found on polysomes, it is likely that they are translated. At least two of the genes are complementary to several transcripts, indicating that each of them has more than one transcription start or stop site or perhaps that there are alternative paths of posttranscriptional processing. There is a different developmental pattern of concentrations for transcripts from each of these genes, and different RNAs from the same gene also have different patterns. We conclude that the concentration of transcripts from each gene appears to be independently controlled and that even different transcription products from the same gene appear to independently controlled.