Ribosomal DNA of the fly Sciara coprophila has a very small and homogeneous repeat unit

Abstract

In this report we show by hybridization of restriction fragments and by Miller spreads that the unit repeat of the fly Sciara coprophila is only 8.4 kb which is the smallest known for a multicellular eukaryote. The 8.4 kb EcoR1 fragment containing a complete unit of Sciara rDNA was cloned in pBR322, and mapped by the method of Parker (1977) and also by double digestions. The coding regions for 28S, 18S, and 5.8S RNA were localized by the method of Berk and Sharp (1977). From these data we conclude that the nontranscribed spacer, external transcribed spacer, and internal transcribed spacer are all shorter than in other organisms, thereby giving rise to the shorter overall rDNA repeat unit of Sciara. At least 90% of the Sciara rDNA repeats are homogeneous, with a length of 8.4 kb, but a 700 bp ladder of minor bands can also be found in digestions of total genome DNA. This profile of major and minor bands is identical between the X and X' chromosomes, as seen by a comparison of several genotypes. There are only 45 rRNA genes per X chromosome of Sciara (Gerbi and Crouse, 1976). These can easily be counted by low magnification Miller spreads which show that virtually all gene copies are actively being transcribed in the stage of spermatogenesis examined. This is the first demonstration for any reiterated gene family where all copies are shown to be simultaneously active.