ABSTRACT
Genetic analysis of specific loci in the late 1970s led to the discovery of regions of the Drosophila chromosome, which contained cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase (PDE)-encoding genes. CG10231 was identified as a homolog of mammalian PDE11. CG10231 resides at position 37A1 on chromosome 2, where it covers nearly 9 kb of genomic sequence. CG5411 has 19 exons and covers over 13 kb of genomic sequence as predicted on FlyBase. BLAST searching using the polypeptide sequence of mammalian PDE9 as a probe revealed significant similarity between this PDE and the conceptual translation of Drosophila CG32648. Drosophila PDE11 lies in a closely related cluster with human PDE5 and PDE6b. The N-terminal autoinhibitory motif of mammalian PDE1A is conserved between mammal and fly, although only one of the two mammalian calmodulin-binding sites appears to be present in Drosophila PDE1. The importance of dunce and, more specifically, cA-PDEs, in learning and behavior, long obscured the existence of other Drosophila PDEs.
