Chromophore-assisted laser inactivation of even skipped in Drosophila precisely phenocopies genetic loss of function

Abstract

The even skipped (eve) gene in Drosophila encodes a homeo-domain protein that acts as a trancriptional regulator during early embryogenesis. We show that an injection of a monoclonal antibody against the eve homeodomain in conjunction with chromophore-assisted laser inactivation (CALI) precisely phenocopies the eve mutant phenotype. Depending on the time of the laser treatment, both the early pair-rule function, as well as the later segmental function of eve can be blocked. This suggests that it might be possible to employ CALI to analyse the function of transcriptional regulators in species that are not amenable to genetic analysis.