Instituto de Biomedicina y Biotecnologéa de Cantabria, . CSIC-SODERCAN-Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, Spain; Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada.
Dev Dyn. 2014 Jan;243(1):182-91. doi: 10.1002/dvdy.24019. Epub 2013 Sep 2.
Precise temporal and spatial expression of the clustered Hox genes is essential for patterning the developing embryo. Temporal activation of Hox genes was shown to be cluster-autonomous. However, gene clustering appears dispensable for spatial colinear expression. Generally, a set of Hox genes expressed in a group of cells instructs these cells about their fate such that the differential expression of Hox genes results in morphological diversity. The spatial colinearity is considered to rely both on local and long-range cis regulation.
Here, we report on the global deregulation of HoxA and HoxD expression patterns upon inactivation of a subset of HOXA and HOXD proteins.
Our data suggest the existence of a "self-regulation" mechanism, a process by which HOX proteins establish and/or maintain the spatial domains of the Hox gene family and we propose that the functionally dominant HOX proteins could contribute to generating the spatial parameters of Hox expression in a given tissue, i.e., HOX controlling the establishment of the ultimate HOX code.
聚类的 Hox 基因的精确时空表达对于胚胎的模式形成至关重要。已经表明 Hox 基因的时空激活是簇自主的。然而，基因聚类对于空间共线性表达似乎是可有可无的。通常，一组在一组细胞中表达的 Hox 基因会指示这些细胞的命运，从而导致 Hox 基因的差异表达导致形态多样性。空间共线性被认为既依赖于局部也依赖于长距离顺式调节。
在这里，我们报告了在一组 HOXA 和 HOXD 蛋白失活的情况下，HoxA 和 HoxD 表达模式的全局失调。
我们的数据表明存在一种“自我调节”机制，即 HOX 蛋白建立和/或维持 Hox 基因家族的空间域的过程，我们提出功能上占主导地位的 HOX 蛋白可能有助于在给定组织中产生 Hox 表达的空间参数，即 HOX 控制最终 HOX 编码的建立。
