Figure 2

Comparative genomic structure of the D. melanogaster , Ae. aegypti and An. gambiae dsx genes. Comparative genomic structure of the D. melanogaster, Ae. aegypti and An. gambiae dsx genes. Green boxes represent the OD1 and OD2 domain-encoding exons. Black boxes represent exons encoding protein regions conserved in mosquitoes but not in fruit flies. Alternative male-specific and female-specific exons are represented as blue boxes and pink boxes, respectively. Green dots represent canonical acceptor/donor splicing sites. Red dots represent weak acceptor/donor splicing sites. White and green rectangles represent, respectively, TRA/TRA-2 binding sites and Nasonia dsxRE. In Drosophila, the Dmdsx gene is located in a 45-kb region on chromosome 3R and is organized into six exons and five introns, with three common exons followed by a female-specific and two male-specific exons. Dmdsx^Ftranslation initiates at the AUG within exon 2 and terminates within the female-specific exon 4, while in the case of Dmdsx^M, translation begins at the same AUG and terminates within the first male-specific exon 5.