Disease relevance of Gs1

• Mutations in the glutamine synthetase I (gsI) gene produce embryo-lethal female sterility in Drosophila melanogaster [1].

High impact information on Gs1

• GSI is responsible for the ATP-dependent amination of glutamate to produce glutamine, which is required in the formation of amino acids, purines and pyrimidines [2].
• We describe the maternal effect phenotype of a hypomorphic mutation in the Drosophila gene for glutamine synthetase I (GSI) [2].
• We looked for subcellular localization of one enzymic isoform; in this way, we were able to locate the GS1 enzyme within the mitochondria of D. melanogaster [3].
• Inhibition of glutamine synthetase with methionine-sulfoximine resulted in very low hsp expression with glutamate and normal high level expression with glutamine, confirming the importance of glutamine [4].
• A Tirant element, inserted at the 5' end of the mitochondrial glutamine synthetase (mt-gs) gene in a mutant allele giving rise to a recessive female sterility phenotype, was cloned and utilized to characterize this novel retrotransposable element of the Drosophila melanogaster genome [5].

Biological context of Gs1

• We conclude that an adequate level of maternally supplied GSI activity is necessary in the early stages of Drosophila embryonic development [1].
• The 5.3 kb element present in the fs(2) PM11-19 mt-gs allele possesses a 417 bp long terminal repeat (LTR) at both ends [5].
• The glutamine synthetase isozymes of Drosophila melanogaster offer an attractive model for the study of the molecular genetics and evolution of a small gene family encoding enzymatic isoforms that evolved to assume a variety of specific and sometimes essential biological functions [6].
• Recombinational and deletion mapping of electrophoretic variants of the glutamine synthetase I isozyme (GSI) in Drosophila melanogaster locates the gene in the 21B region on the second chromosome [7].

Other interactions of Gs1

• The ventral compartment contains thick GS1, and the dorsal compartment has slender sensilla GS2 [8].

References