Characterization of the EstP protein in Drosophila melanogaster and its conservation in drosophilids

The beta-esterase cluster of D. melanogaster comprises two tandemly duplicated genes. Est6 encodes the well-characterized 5' gene, but the product of the second gene, denoted EstP, had not previously been identified. Here we show that the EstP gene encodes the carboxylesterase EST7. Expression of EstP using the Baculovirus system led to production of a carboxylesterase biochemically indistinguishable from EST7. Furthermore, a naturally occurring EstP variant produces greatly reduced amounts of EstP mRNA and no detectable EST7 protein. Finally, introduction of a wild-type copy of EstP by germline transformation into the variant strain confers the wild-type EST7 phenotype. We show that EST7 differs from EST6 in its substrate and inhibitor specificities and tissue distribution. Germline transformation experiments show that EstP expression is controlled by sequences located between 192 bp 5' and 609 bp 3' of the EstP coding region. Data comparisons with other drosophilid esterases suggest that the site of expression and hence the function, of EST7 has been conserved across lineages in both the subgenera Drosophila and Sophophora.