Gaudet J, Mango S E
Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, 2000 Circle of Hope, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
Science. 2002 Feb 1;295(5556):821-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1065175.
The pha-4 locus encodes a forkhead box A (FoxA/HNF3) transcription factor homolog that specifies organ identity for Caenorhabditis elegans pharyngeal cells. We used microarrays to identify pharyngeal genes and analyzed those genes to determine which were direct PHA-4 targets. Our data suggest that PHA-4 directly activates most or all pharyngeal genes. Furthermore, the relative affinity of PHA-4 for different TRTTKRY (R = A/G, K = T/G, Y = T/C) elements modulates the onset of gene expression, providing a mechanism to activate pharyngeal genes at different developmental stages. We suggest that direct transcriptional regulation of entire gene networks may be a common feature of organ identity genes.
pha-4基因座编码一种叉头框A（FoxA/HNF3）转录因子同源物，它决定了秀丽隐杆线虫咽部细胞的器官特性。我们使用微阵列来鉴定咽部基因，并分析这些基因以确定哪些是PHA-4的直接靶标。我们的数据表明，PHA-4直接激活了大多数或所有咽部基因。此外，PHA-4对不同TRTTKRY（R = A/G，K = T/G，Y = T/C）元件的相对亲和力调节了基因表达的起始，为在不同发育阶段激活咽部基因提供了一种机制。我们认为，对整个基因网络的直接转录调控可能是器官特性基因的一个共同特征。
