Abai, MR

6th International Congress of Dipterologyspecies of tephritids (5 species), sepsids (5) and diopsids (6). The familieswere chosen to provide more optimal evolutionary comparisons withdrosophilids, and individual species were chosen to facilitate theidentification of functional sequences by intrafamily comparison. We areidentifying potential regulatory regions in these targeted loci based on thecontent and evolutionary properties of their DNA sequence and testingtheir function in transgenic D. melanogaster embryos. In parallel we arecharacterizing the endogenous gene expression patterns in select species byRNA in situ hybridization and antibody staining. By studying enhancerevolution in increasingly divergent species we are developing a betterunderstanding of the natural variation in functional enhancers and howchanges in these enhancers lead to the morphological and developmentaldiversity in Diptera.∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗97