Fig. 2. Comparison of the sequences of myofilin and the sequences of flightin in different insects. (A) Alignment of myofilin amino acid sequences in Drosophila melanogaster (isoforms DmMf5 and DmMf2), Anopheles gambiae (AgMf2) and Lethocerus indicus (LiMf2). Drosophila and Lethocerus myofilin sequences were obtained as described in the Materials and Methods. The homologous sequence in Anopheles is from the EST database (BM64635). Caenorhabditis elegans ß-filagenin sequence is shown below the myofilin sequences (Liu et al., 1998). Stars below the sequence are regions in DmMf5 predicted to be helical. (B) Alignment of flightin sequences in D. melanogaster (DmFln) and L. indicus (LiFln). No flightin sequence was found in the Anopheles genome. In both A and B, residues that are identical in Lethocerus and Drosophila or Anopheles or C. elegans, or all four, are shaded dark grey; other identical residues are shaded light grey. This illustrates the extent of homology between the sequences of the hemipteran, Lethocerus, and the two dipterans, Drosophila and Anopheles, as well as that between the sequences of individual insect species; C. elegans ß-filagenin is included for comparison with a nematode.