Developmental Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany.
Nat Rev Genet. 2012 Sep;13(9):613-26. doi: 10.1038/nrg3207. Epub 2012 Aug 7.
Developmental progression is driven by specific spatiotemporal domains of gene expression, which give rise to stereotypically patterned embryos even in the presence of environmental and genetic variation. Views of how transcription factors regulate gene expression are changing owing to recent genome-wide studies of transcription factor binding and RNA expression. Such studies reveal patterns that, at first glance, seem to contrast with the robustness of the developmental processes they encode. Here, we review our current knowledge of transcription factor function from genomic and genetic studies and discuss how different strategies, including extensive cooperative regulation (both direct and indirect), progressive priming of regulatory elements, and the integration of activities from multiple enhancers, confer specificity and robustness to transcriptional regulation during development.
发育进程是由特定的时空基因表达域驱动的，即使在环境和遗传变异的情况下，也能产生典型模式化的胚胎。由于最近对转录因子结合和 RNA 表达的全基因组研究，人们对转录因子如何调节基因表达的观点正在发生变化。这些研究揭示的模式，乍一看，似乎与它们所编码的发育过程的稳健性形成对比。在这里，我们从基因组和遗传研究综述了我们目前对转录因子功能的认识，并讨论了不同的策略，包括广泛的合作调控（直接和间接的）、调控元件的逐步启动，以及来自多个增强子的活动的整合，如何在发育过程中赋予转录调控特异性和稳健性。
