Pueyo Jose Ignacio, Couso Juan Pablo
School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK.
Dev Biol. 2008 Dec 15;324(2):192-201. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2008.08.025. Epub 2008 Sep 5.
The polycistronic and non-canonical gene tarsal-less encodes several short peptides 11 to 32 aminoacids long. tarsal-less is required for embryonic and imaginal development in Drosophila, but the molecular and cellular bases of its function are not known. Here we show that tarsal-less function triggers a cell signal. This signal has a range of 2-3 cells in Drosophila legs and may be provided directly by the Tarsal-less peptides. During leg development, this Tarsal-less signal implements the patterning activity of a tarsal boundary and regulates the transcription of several genes in a specific manner. Thus tarsal-less is necessary for the intercalation of the tarsal segments two to four and for the activation of the homeobox gene apterous, the Zinc-finger gene rotund and the bHLH-PAS gene spineless, and for the repression of the homeobox gene Bar and the putative transcription factor dacshund. These regulatory effects complement the known genetic scenario required for distal leg development and explain the requirements for tarsal-less in this process.
多顺反子且非经典的基因“无跗节”编码几种长度为11至32个氨基酸的短肽。“无跗节”对于果蝇的胚胎发育和成虫盘发育是必需的，但其功能的分子和细胞基础尚不清楚。在这里，我们表明“无跗节”功能触发了一种细胞信号。在果蝇腿部，这种信号的作用范围为2 - 3个细胞，并且可能直接由“无跗节”肽提供。在腿部发育过程中，这种“无跗节”信号实现了跗节边界的模式形成活动，并以特定方式调节几个基因的转录。因此，“无跗节”对于跗节第二至第四节段的嵌入以及同源异型盒基因“无翅”、锌指基因“圆突”和bHLH - PAS基因“无脊椎”的激活，以及对同源异型盒基因“棒眼”和假定转录因子“腊肠”的抑制是必需的。这些调节作用补充了腿部远端发育所需的已知遗传情况，并解释了在此过程中对“无跗节”的需求。
