The insect steroid hormone ecdysone is a key regulator of oogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster and many other species. Despite the diversity of cellular functions of ecdysone in oogenesis, the molecular regulation of most ecdysone-responsive genes in ovarian cells remains largely unexplored. We performed a functional screen using the UAS/Gal4 system to identify non-coding cis-regulatory elements within well-characterized ecdysone-response genes capable of driving transcription of an indelible reporter in ovarian cells. Using two publicly available transgenic collections (the FlyLight and Vienna Tiles resources), we tested 62 Gal4 drivers corresponding to ecdysone-response genes EcR, usp, E75, br, ftz-f1 and Hr3. We observed 31 lines that were sufficient to drive a UAS-lacZ reporter in discrete cell populations in the ovary. Reporter expression was reproducibly observed in both somatic and germ cells at distinct stages of oogenesis, including those previously characterized as critical points of ecdysone regulation. Our studies identified several useful new reagents, adding to the UAS/Gal4 toolkit available for genetic analysis of oogenesis in Drosophila. Further, our study provides novel insight into the molecular regulation of ecdysone signaling in oogenesis.

昆虫类固醇激素蜕皮激素是果蝇和许多其他物种卵子发生的关键调节剂。尽管蜕皮激素在卵子发生过程中的细胞功能各不相同，但卵巢细胞中大多数对蜕皮激素反应的基因的分子调控仍未开发。我们使用UAS / Gal4系统进行了功能筛选，以鉴定能够驱动卵巢细胞中不可磨灭的报道基因转录的特征明确的蜕皮激素反应基因内的非编码顺式调控元件。使用两个公共可用的转基因集合（FlyLight和Vienna Tiles资源），我们测试了62个与蜕皮激素响应基因EcR，usp，E75对应的Gal4驱动程序，br，ftz-f1和Hr3。我们观察到足以在卵巢中离散细胞群体中驱动UAS-lacZ报告基因的31条品系。在体细胞和生殖细胞在卵子发生的不同阶段都可再现地观察到报告基因的表达，包括以前被认为是蜕皮激素调节关键点的那些。我们的研究确定了几种有用的新试剂，并将其添加到UAS / Gal4工具包中，可用于对果蝇中卵子发生进行遗传分析。此外，我们的研究为蜕皮激素信号转导在卵子发生中的分子调控提供了新的见识。