Characterization of voltage-sensitive sodium channel gene coding sequences from insecticide-susceptible and knockdown-resistant house fly strains.

The kdr insecticide resistance trait of the house fly (Musca domestica .L.), which confers reduced neuronal sensitivity to DDT and pyrethroid insecticides, was previously shown to exhibit tight genetic linkage to restriction fragment length polymorphism markers lying within a voltage-sensitive sodium channel gene that is homologous to the para gene of Drosophila melanogaster. In the present study, the 6315 nucleotide coding sequences of this voltage-sensitive sodium channel gene from insecticide-susceptible (NAIDM strain) and kdr (538ge strain) house flies were determined by automated direct DNA sequencing of PCR fragments obtained by amplification on first strand cDNA from adult heads. The deduced 2105-residue amino acid sequence from each strain exhibited overall structure and organization typical of sodium channel alpha subunit genes and was 90.0% identical to that of the D. melanogaster para gene product. We did not detect any splice variants among voltage-sensitive sodium channel cDNAs obtained from adult house fly head preparations. Comparison of the coding sequence of the voltage-sensitive sodium channel gene of the kdr house fly strain to that of the NAIDM strain revealed 12 amino acid differences in the 538ge strain. The significance of these polymorphisms as candidate resistance-conferring mutations is discussed.