This study attempts to determine what regions of the 5$\sp\prime$ upstream flanking region of the D. melanogaster 34C Vitelline Membrane gene are necessary to confer in vivo, the sex, tissue, and egg chamber stage-specific developmental pattern of expression typical of the 34C endogenous gene. In order to test this, upstream flanking regions of the 34C gene were fused to gene constructs carrying chloramphenicol acetyltransferase as a "reporter" gene. These hybrid constructs were then introduced into D. melanogaster via P-element mediated germ line transformation. The results suggest that a 101 base pair fragment that spans the $-$211 to $-$110 upstream region of the 34C VM gene, can confer--in conjunction with the normal TATA sequence promoter--the sex, and tissue specific and egg chamber specific pattern of expression of the 34C VM gene. Highly sensitive CAT analysis data suggest that the transcription of this gene may begin at stage 7 egg chambers, earlier than shown by data from Northern analysis, which places it at stage 8 egg chambers.
