Jiang Yuan, Shi Herong, Liu Jun
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, 439 Biotechnology Building, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Dev Biol. 2009 Oct 15;334(2):535-46. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2009.07.034. Epub 2009 Jul 28.
The TALE homeodomain-containing PBC and MEIS proteins play multiple roles during metazoan development. Mutations in these proteins can cause various disorders, including cancer. In this study, we examined the roles of MEIS proteins in mesoderm development in C. elegans using the postembryonic mesodermal M lineage as a model system. We found that the MEIS protein UNC-62 plays essential roles in regulating cell fate specification and differentiation in the M lineage. Furthermore, UNC-62 appears to function together with the PBC protein CEH-20 in regulating these processes. Both unc-62 and ceh-20 have overlapping expression patterns within and outside of the M lineage, and they share physical and regulatory interactions. In particular, we found that ceh-20 is genetically required for the promoter activity of unc-62, providing evidence for another layer of regulatory interactions between MEIS and PBC proteins.
含TALE同源结构域的PBC和MEIS蛋白在多细胞动物发育过程中发挥多种作用。这些蛋白的突变可导致包括癌症在内的各种疾病。在本研究中，我们以胚胎后中胚层M系为模型系统，研究了秀丽隐杆线虫中MEIS蛋白在中胚层发育中的作用。我们发现MEIS蛋白UNC-62在调节M系中的细胞命运特化和分化方面发挥着重要作用。此外，UNC-62似乎与PBC蛋白CEH-20共同作用来调节这些过程。unc-62和ceh-20在M系内外具有重叠的表达模式，并且它们共享物理和调节相互作用。特别地，我们发现ceh-20对于unc-62的启动子活性在遗传学上是必需的，这为MEIS和PBC蛋白之间的另一层调节相互作用提供了证据。
