Cortex, a Drosophila gene required to complete oocyte meiosis, is a member of the Cdc20/fizzy protein family

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Abstract
Summary: Mutations in cortex and grauzone cause abnormal arrest in Drosophila female meiosis. cortex was mapped to a 14 kb interval in 26F–27A by the male recombination mapping method. While these experiments mapped the gene accurately, they also illustrated some complexities of this method. Rescue results showed that a 2.8 kb genomic fragment from this interval was able to fully rescue the cortex phenotype. The 2.8 kb rescuing fragment contains a single open reading frame. The predicted amino acid sequence indicates that cortex encodes a WD‐repeat protein and is a distant member of the Cdc20 protein family. Results from a developmental Northern analysis showed that the cortex transcript is expressed at high levels during oogenesis and early embryogenesis. Interestingly, the meiotic metaphase‐anaphase II arrest defect in embryos laid by cortex homozygous females resembles the mitotic metaphase‐anaphase defects observed in yeast cdc20 mutants. The predicted nature of the Cortex protein, together with the observed meiotic phenotype in cortex mutants, suggest that a similar pathway to the cdc20 dependent APC‐mediated proteolysis pathway, which governs the metaphase‐anaphase transition in mitosis, is also important in regulating oocyte meiosis. genesis 29:141–152, 2001.