The expression of histone genes during Drosophila melanogaster oogenesis

A genomic fragment was cloned from a DNA library constructed from a Drosophila enhancer trap line in which reporter gene expression was observed at the anterior-most tip of the ovaries and testes. This genomic clone was identified as the L-repeat of the Drosophila melanogaster histone gene cluster. Northern blotting and in situ hybridisation to RNA in tissues with individual cDNAs and PCR-generated probes for each histone confirmed that gene expression was greatest at the anterior portion of each ovariole, in the germarium, and was also elevated in a few individual nurse cells and somatic follicle cells within the egg chamber during early developmental stages. Histone H1 and each of the core histones had a similar expression pattern which was correlated to cell division. Maternal stores of histone transcripts were also transported to the mature oocyte from the nurse cells at a later stage of oogenesis (stage 10), when virtually all the nurse cells contained high levels of histone transcripts. The results are consistent with expression of the somatic histone gene cluster during oogenesis as a co-ordinate unit. There does not seem to be a reduced level of somatic type H1 in the germ-line, as is observed in some other species. The relationship between the P[lacZ] expression pattern in the germarium and the overall expression of the histone cluster suggests there are specific regulatory elements for germ-line expression.