Regulatory regions of the homeotic gene proboscipedia are sensitive to chromosomal pairing

We have identified regulatory regions of the homeotic gene proboscipedia that are capable of repressing a linked white minigene in a manner that is sensitive to chromosomal pairing. Normally, the eye color of transformants containing white in a P-element vector is affected by the number of copies of the transgene; homozygous flies have darker eyes than heterozygotes. However, we found that flies homozygous for select pb DNA-containing transgenes had lighter eyes than heterozygotes. Several pb DNA fragments are capable of causing this pairing sensitive (PS) negative regulation of white. Two fragments in the upstream DNA of pb, 0.58 and 0.98 kb, are PS; additionally, two PS sites are located in the second intron, including a 0.5-kb region and 49-bp sequence. This phenotype is not observed when two PS sites are located at different chromosomal insertion sites (in trans-heterozygous transgenic animals), indicating that the pb-DNA-mediated repression of white is dependent on the pairing or proximity of the PS regions. The observed phenomenon is similar to transvection in which certain alleles of a gene can complement each other, but only when homologous chromosomes are paired. Interestingly, the intronic PS regions contain positive regulatory sequences for pb, whereas the upstream PS sites contain pb negative regulatory elements.