top of page

Cytochrome P450's

 

Cytochrome P450 are important detoxification enzymes that often perform the first step in the degradation of foreign compounds (see right). In the words of toxicologists they are the archetypal 'phase one' enzymes, and usually (but not always) act by adding an oxygen to a chemical substrate. Their name comes from their characteristic absorption of light with a wave length of 450nm that can be attributed to a heme moiety in their catalytic centre.

 

 We have found that the P450 complement of Drosophila species varies from 74-94 per genome and estimate that the ancestral Drosophile species had 77 P450 genes. Thirty of these 77 P450 genes show no sign of gain or loss in a sample of 12 Drosophila species ('1:1 orthologs') and these are enriched for P450 genes with conserved functions such as those that make the insect hormone ecdysone. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our P450 publications include:

Good, R.T., L.Gramzow, P.Battlay, T.Sztal, P.Batterham, C.Robin (2014). The Molecular Evolution of Cytochrome P450 genes within and between Drosophila species. Genome Biology and Evolution 6(5)1118-1134.

Hoi, K.K., P.J. Daborn, P. Battlay, C. Robin, P. Batterham, R.A.J. O’Hair, W.A. Donald (2014) Dissecting the Insect Metabolic Machinery Using Twin Ion Mass Spectrometry: A single P450 Enzyme Metabolizing the Insecticide Imidacloprid In Vivo. Analytical Chemistry 86(7) 3525-3532.

Schmidt, J. M., Good, R.T., Appleton, B., Lydall, J., Bogwitz, M. R., Martin, Daborn, P.J., Batterham, P and Robin, C. (2010) Copy Number Variation and Transposable Elements feature in an adaptive walk at the Cyp6g1 locus. PLoS Genetics 6(6): Art. No. e1000998.

Wee, C. W., Lee, S. F., Robin, C., and Heckel, D. G. (2008) Identification of candidate genes for fenvalerate resistance in Helicoverpa armigera using cDNA-AFLP Insect Molecular Biology 17 (4), 351–360

Drosophila Comparative Genome Sequencing and Analysis Consortium. (2007) Genomics on a Phylogeny: Evolution of Genes and Genomes in the Genus Drosophila. Nature 450 :203-218.

Sztal, T., Chung, H., Gramzow, L., Daborn, P.J., Batterham, P., Robin, C. (2007) Two independent gene duplications forming the 307a genes of Drosophila. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 37(10):1044-1053.

Robin, C, Daborn, P.J., Hoffmann, A.A. (2007) Fighting Fly Genes. Trends in Genetics 23(2) 51-54.

Willoughby, L., Chung, H., Lumb, C., Robin, C. Batterham, P., Daborn, P.J. (2006) A comparison of Drosophila melanogaster detoxification gene induction responses for six insecticides, caffeine and Phenobarbital. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 36 (12) 934-942.

Please reload

bottom of page