Natural and laboratory mutations in kuzbanian are associated with heavy metal stress phenotypes in Drosophila melanogaster

Organisms must cope with altered environmental conditions such as high concentrations of heavy metals. Stress response to heavy metals is mediated by the metal-responsive transcription factor 1 (MTF-1), which is conserved from Drosophila to humans. MTF-1 binds to metal response elements (MREs) and changes the expression of target genes. kuzbanian (kuz), a metalloendopeptidase that activates the evolutionary conserved Notch signaling pathway, has been identified as an MTF-1 target gene. We have previously identified a putatively adaptive transposable element in the Drosophila melanogaster genome, named FBti0019170, inserted in a kuz intron. In this work, we investigated whether laboratory-ind