Gebelein Brian, McKay Daniel J, Mann Richard S
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, Columbia University, 701 West 168th Street, HHSC 1104, New York, New York 10032, USA.
Nature. 2004 Oct 7;431(7009):653-9. doi: 10.1038/nature02946.
During Drosophila embryogenesis, segments, each with an anterior and posterior compartment, are generated by the segmentation genes while the Hox genes provide each segment with a unique identity. These two processes have been thought to occur independently. Here we show that abdominal Hox proteins work directly with two different segmentation proteins, Sloppy paired and Engrailed, to repress the Hox target gene Distalless in anterior and posterior compartments, respectively. These results suggest that segmentation proteins can function as Hox cofactors and reveal a previously unanticipated use of compartments for gene regulation by Hox proteins. Our results suggest that these two classes of proteins may collaborate to directly control gene expression at many downstream target genes.
在果蝇胚胎发育过程中，由体节基因产生具有前后两个区室的体节，而同源异型基因赋予每个体节独特的身份。这两个过程一直被认为是独立发生的。我们在此表明，腹部同源异型蛋白分别与两种不同的体节蛋白——草率配对蛋白和 engrailed 蛋白直接作用，以分别在前区室和后区室中抑制同源异型靶基因 Distalless。这些结果表明，体节蛋白可作为同源异型辅因子发挥作用，并揭示了同源异型蛋白在基因调控中对区室的一种先前未预料到的利用方式。我们的结果表明，这两类蛋白可能协同作用，直接控制许多下游靶基因的基因表达。
