Developmental expression of nuclear genes that encode mitochondrial proteins: insect cytochromes c.

To investigate tissue-specific developmental regulation of mitochondrial biogenesis, we studied the expression of the Manduca sexta (tobacco hornworm moth) thoracic muscle cytochrome c gene during adult eclosion and used this information to obtain a cDNA clone for this gene, which in turn was used to isolate the corresponding Drosophila melanogaster gene. Over the 3 days prior to adult Manduca emergence, mitochondrial inner membranes become progressively more electron dense and lamellar, and, while there is no accumulation of apocytochrome c, the amount of the holoprotein increases 40-fold per insect thorax. As determined by in vitro translation and blot hybridization analysis, the major thoracic muscle cytochrome c gene is primarily regulated at the transcriptional level, with cytochrome c mRNA increasing from less than 0.01% to 0.04% of total poly(A)+ RNA and declining to an undetectable level by day 2 after eclosion. Furthermore, the ratio of cytochrome c to the other cytochromes remains the same at all times, indicating that these components of the respiratory chain follow coordinated developmental programs. By using polysome immunoadsorption, a poly(A)+ RNA population of greater than or equal to 95% cytochrome c mRNA was isolated from thoracic muscle tissue and was used to construct a cDNA library, which was screened by hybrid selection/translation. We report the sequence of one of those clones, pMSc750, and its use to isolate the major thoracic muscle cytochrome c gene of Drosophila.