Annotation of Fosmid 60 of Drosophila erecta and of DMAC 47 of Drosophila mojavensis as control sequences in the comparative genomic analysis of the Drosophila dot chromosome. Carolina Marques dos Santos Viera, Tiara Tirasawasdichai, Susan Parrish. Biology Department, McDaniel College, Westminster, MD 21157.

   Annotation of a DNA sequence allows for the identification of genes and sequence hallmarks within a genome. In this work, we annotated DNA sequences from two Drosophila species, D. erecta and D. mojavensis, for a comparative genomics study of the Drosophila dot chromosome, a tiny chromosome that is unusual in that it displays euchromatic and heterochromatic properties that can differ between species. In this project, we annotated chromosome 3L as a euchromatic chromosome control for the dot chromosome. First, Drosophila erecta Fosmid 60, a 40, 000 bp sequence from chromosome 3L, was annotated. Fosmid 60 was shown to have two putative genes that are orthologous to Drosophila melanogaster: CG33234 and CG43375, both of which have two protein isoforms in D. melanogaster. Next, D. mojavensis Fosmid DMAC 47, a 43,870 bp sequence from chromosome 3L, was annotated and determined to contain five putative genes that are orthologous to D. melanogaster: CG43444, which has three protein isoforms in D. melanogaster, pgant6, mRpS35, CG34455, and Klp67A, each of which have only one protein isoform in D. melanogaster. The features annotated in this project included the translation start and stop codons, the splice junctions, and the coding exons. The overall goal of this project is to compare the higher order chromatin structure of the dot chromosome of different Drosophila species in relation to sequence content. This project was completed in collaboration with the Genomics Education Partnership (GEP), an educational initiative that allows undergraduate students to participate in original genomics research projects.