polyhomeotic appears to be a target of engrailed regulation in Drosophila

Development ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 121 (6) ◽  
pp. 1691-1703 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Serrano ◽  
H.W. Brock ◽  
C. Demeret ◽  
J.M. Dura ◽  
N.B. Randsholt ◽  
...  

In Drosophila, Engrailed is a nuclear regulatory protein with essential roles in embryonic segmentation and in normal development of posterior compartments. One of its regulatory targets appears to be polyhomeotic (ph), a Polycomb group gene. We observed, by immunostaining, that Engrailed protein binds to the site of the polyhomeotic locus in region 2D of polytene chromosomes. The same analysis carried out on a transgenic line containing one copy of a P(ph-lacZ) construct shows an additional Engrailed-binding site at the location of the insert. In vivo, polyhomeotic depends on engrailed function in germ-band-elongated embryos, when engrailed and polyhomeotic genes are expressed in similar patterns. By in vitro immunoprecipitations and gel shift assays, we identified two classes of high affinity Engrailed-binding sites upstream of each of the two polyhomeotic transcription units. DNA fragments containing these sites were also immunoprecipitated from embryonic UV crosslinked chromatin in presence of anti-Engrailed antibody. These results suggest that polyhomeotic activation in germ-band-elongated embryos could be mediated by Engrailed-binding to these sites.

Development ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 124 (13) ◽  
pp. 2527-2536 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Serrano ◽  
H.W. Brock ◽  
F. Maschat

In Drosophila, Engrailed is a nuclear regulatory protein with essential roles during embryonic development. Although Engrailed is a transcription factor, little progress has been achieved in identifying its target genes. We report here the identification of an effector gene, the beta3-tubulin gene, as a direct target of Engrailed. The cytological location of beta3-tubulin, 60C, is a strong site of Engrailed binding on polytene chromosomes. Immunostaining analysis of a transgenic line containing a P[beta3-tubulin-lacZ] construct shows an additional site of Engrailed binding at the location of the transgene. Molecular analysis allowed identification of several Engrailed binding sites, both in vitro and in vivo, within the first intron of the beta3-tubulin locus. Engrailed binding sites identified in vitro are active in larvae. Furthermore, expression of beta3-tubulin is derepressed in the ectoderm of engrailed mutant embryos. Repression of beta3-tubulin by Engrailed is also obtained when Engrailed is ectopically expressed in embryonic mesoderm. Finally, two different sets of Engrailed binding sites are shown to be involved in the early and late regulation of beta3-tubulin by Engrailed during embryogenesis.


2003 ◽  
Vol 284 (2) ◽  
pp. G328-G339 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Singh ◽  
X. Lu ◽  
S. Cobb ◽  
B. T. Miller ◽  
N. Tarasova ◽  
...  

Proliferation and carcinogenesis of the large intestinal epithelial cells (IEC) cells is significantly increased in transgenic mice that overexpress the precursor progastrin (PG) peptide. It is not known if the in vivo growth effects of PG on IEC cells are mediated directly or indirectly. Full-length recombinant human PG (rhPG1–80) was generated to examine possible direct effects of PG on IEC cells. Surprisingly, rhPG (0.1–1.0 nM) was more effective than the completely processed gastrin 17 (G17) peptide as a growth factor. Even though IEC cells did not express CCK1and CCK2receptors (-R), fluorescently labeled G17 and Gly-extended G17 (G-Gly) were specifically bound to the cells, suggesting the presence of binding proteins other than CCK1-R and CCK2-R on IEC cells. High-affinity ( Kd= 0.5–1.0 nM) binding sites for125I-rhPG were discovered on IEC cells that demonstrated relative binding affinity for gastrin-like peptides in the order PG ≥ COOH-terminally extended G17 ≥ G-Gly > G17 > *CCK-8 (* significant difference; P< 0.05). In conclusion, our studies demonstrate for the first time direct growth effects of the full-length precursor peptide on IEC cells in vitro that are apparently mediated by the high-affinity PG binding sites that were discovered on these cells.


2012 ◽  
Vol 449 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Saggioro ◽  
Anne Olliver ◽  
Bianca Sclavi

The DnaA protein is a key factor for the regulation of the timing and synchrony of initiation of bacterial DNA replication. The transcription of the dnaA gene in Escherichia coli is regulated by two promoters, dnaAP1 and dnaAP2. The region between these two promoters contains several DnaA-binding sites that have been shown to play an important role in the negative auto-regulation of dnaA expression. The results obtained in the present study using an in vitro and in vivo quantitative analysis of the effect of mutations to the high-affinity DnaA sites reveal an additional effect of positive autoregulation. We investigated the role of transcription autoregulation in the change of dnaA expression as a function of temperature. While negative auto-regulation is lost at dnaAP1, the effects of both positive and negative autoregulation are maintained at the dnaAP2 promoter upon lowering the growth temperature. These observations can be explained by the results obtained in vitro showing a difference in the temperature-dependence of DnaA–ATP binding to its high- and low-affinity sites, resulting in a decrease in DnaA–ATP oligomerization at lower temperatures. The results of the present study underline the importance of the role for autoregulation of gene expression in the cellular adaptation to different growth temperatures.


Development ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 110 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Payre ◽  
S. Noselli ◽  
V. Lefrere ◽  
A. Vincent

Serendipity (sry) beta (beta) and delta (delta) are two finger protein genes resulting from a duplication event. Comparison of their respective protein products shows interspersed blocks of conserved and divergent amino-acid sequences. The most extensively conserved region corresponds to the predicted DNA-binding domain which includes 6 contiguous fingers; no significant sequence conservation is found upstream and downstream of the protein-coding region. We have analysed the evolutionary divergence of the sry beta and delta proteins on two separate levels, their embryonic pattern of expression and their DNA-binding properties in vitro and in vivo. By using specific antibodies and transformant lines containing beta-galactosidase fusion genes, we show that the sry beta and sry delta proteins are maternally inherited and present in embryonic nuclei at the onset of zygotic transcription, suggesting that they are transcription factors involved in this process. Zygotic synthesis of the sry beta protein starts during nuclear division cycles 12–13, prior to cellularisation of the blastoderm, while the zygotic sry delta protein is not detectable before germ band extension (stage 10 embryos). Contrary to sry delta, the zygotic sry beta protein constitutes only a minor fraction of the total embryonic protein. The sry beta and delta proteins made in E. coli bind to DNA, with partly overlapping specificities. Their in vivo patterns of binding to DNA, visualised by immunostaining polytene chromosomes, differ both in the number and position of their binding sites. Thus changes in expression pattern and DNA-binding specificity have contributed to the evolution of the sry beta and delta genes.


1991 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 3642-3651 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Devlin ◽  
K Tice-Baldwin ◽  
D Shore ◽  
K T Arndt

The major in vitro binding activity to the Saccharomyces cerevisiae HIS4 promoter is due to the RAP1 protein. In the absence of GCN4, BAS1, and BAS2, the RAP1 protein binds to the HIS4 promoter in vivo but cannot efficiently stimulate HIS4 transcription. RAP1, which binds adjacently to BAS2 on the HIS4 promoter, is required for BAS1/BAS2-dependent activation of HIS4 basal-level transcription. In addition, the RAP1-binding site overlaps with the single high-affinity HIS4 GCN4-binding site. Even though RAP1 and GCN4 bind competitively in vitro, RAP1 is required in vivo for (i) the normal steady-state levels of GCN4-dependent HIS4 transcription under nonstarvation conditions and (ii) the rapid increase in GCN4-dependent steady-state HIS4 mRNA levels following amino acid starvation. The presence of the RAP1-binding site in the HIS4 promoter causes a dramatic increase in the micrococcal nuclease sensitivity of two adjacent regions within HIS4 chromatin: one region contains the high-affinity GCN4-binding site, and the other region contains the BAS1- and BAS2-binding sites. These results suggest that RAP1 functions at HIS4 by increasing the accessibility of GCN4, BAS1, and BAS2 to their respective binding sites when these sites are present within chromatin.


2001 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1311-1318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rakesh K. Mishra ◽  
Jozsef Mihaly ◽  
Stéphane Barges ◽  
Annick Spierer ◽  
François Karch ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT In the work reported here we have undertaken a functional dissection of a Polycomb response element (PRE) from the iab-7 cis-regulatory domain of the Drosophila melanogasterbithorax complex (BX-C). Previous studies mapped the iab-7PRE to an 860-bp fragment located just distal to the Fab-7boundary. Located within this fragment is an ∼230-bp chromatin-specific nuclease-hypersensitive region called HS3. We have shown that HS3 is capable of functioning as a Polycomb-dependent silencer in vivo, inducing pairing-dependent silencing of amini-white reporter. The HS3 sequence contains consensus binding sites for the GAGA factor, a protein implicated in the formation of nucleosome-free regions of chromatin, and Pleiohomeotic (Pho), a Polycomb group protein that is related to the mammalian transcription factor YY1. We show that GAGA and Pho interact with these sequences in vitro and that the consensus binding sites for the two proteins are critical for the silencing activity of theiab-7 PRE in vivo.


Microbiology ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 155 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svenja S. Nentwich ◽  
Karina Brinkrolf ◽  
Lars Gaigalat ◽  
Andrea T. Hüser ◽  
Daniel A. Rey ◽  
...  

The gene products of the rbsRACBD (rbs) operon of C. glutamicum (cg1410–cg1414) encode a ribose-specific ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transport system and its corresponding regulatory protein (RbsR). Deletion of the structural genes rbsACBD prohibited ribose uptake. Deletion of the regulatory gene rbsR resulted in an increased mRNA level of the whole operon. Analysis of the promoter region of the rbs operon by electrophoretic mobility shift assays identified a catabolite-responsive element (cre)-like sequence as the RbsR-binding site. Additional RbsR-binding sites were identified in front of the recently characterized uriR operon (uriR-rbsK1-uriT-uriH) and the ribokinase gene rbsK2. In vitro, the repressor RbsR bound to its targets in the absence of an effector. A probable negative effector of RbsR in vivo is ribose 5-phosphate or a derivative thereof, since in a ribokinase (rbsK1 rbsK2) double mutant, no derepression of the rbs operon in the presence of ribose was observed. Analysis of the ribose stimulon in the C. glutamicum wild-type revealed transcriptional induction of the uriR and rbs operons as well as of the rbsK2 gene. The inconsistency between the existence of functional RbsR-binding sites upstream of the ribokinase genes, their transcriptional induction during growth on ribose, and the missing induction in the rbsR mutant suggested the involvement of a second transcriptional regulator. Simultaneous deletion of the regulatory genes rbsR and uriR finally demonstrated a transcriptional co-control of the rbs and uriR operons and the rbsK2 gene by both regulators, RbsR and UriR, which were furthermore shown to recognize the same cognate DNA sequences in the operators of their target genes.


2021 ◽  
pp. gr.276080.121
Author(s):  
Christopher T Coey ◽  
David J. Clark

Sequence-specific DNA-binding transcription factors are central to gene regulation. They are often associated with consensus binding sites that predict far more genomic sites than are bound in vivo. One explanation is that most sites are blocked by nucleosomes, such that only sites in nucleosome-depleted regulatory regions are bound. We compared the binding of the yeast transcription factor Gcn4 in vivo using published ChIP-seq data (546 sites) and in vitro, using a modified SELEX method ("G-SELEX"), which utilizes short genomic DNA fragments to quantify binding at all sites. We confirm that Gcn4 binds strongly to an AP-1-like sequence (TGACTCA) and weakly to half-sites. However, Gcn4 binds only some of the 1078 exact matches to this sequence, even in vitro. We show that there are only 166 copies of the high-affinity RTGACTCAY site (exact match) in the yeast genome, all occupied in vivo, largely independently of whether they are located in nucleosome-depleted or nucleosomal regions. Generally, RTGACTCAR/YTGACTCAY sites are bound much more weakly and YTGACTCAR sites are unbound, with biological implications for determining induction levels. We conclude that, to a first approximation, Gcn4 binding can be predicted using the high-affinity site, without reference to chromatin structure. We propose that transcription factor binding sites should be defined more precisely using quantitative data, allowing more accurate genome-wide prediction of binding sites and greater insight into gene regulation.


2000 ◽  
Vol 182 (14) ◽  
pp. 4022-4027 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Fekete ◽  
Laura S. Frost

ABSTRACT Cleavage at the F plasmid nic site within the origin of transfer (oriT) requires the F-encoded proteins TraY and TraI and the host-encoded protein integration host factor in vitro. We confirm that F TraY, but not F TraM, is required for cleavage atnic in vivo. Chimeric plasmids were constructed which contained either the entire F or R100-1 oriT regions or various combinations of nic, TraY, and TraM binding sites, in addition to the traM gene. The efficiency of cleavage atnic and the frequency of mobilization were assayed in the presence of F or R100-1 plasmids. The ability of these chimeric plasmids to complement an F traM mutant or affect F transfer via negative dominance was also measured using transfer efficiency assays. In cases where cleavage at nic was detected, R100-1 TraI was not sensitive to the two-base difference in sequence immediately downstream of nic, while F TraI was specific for the F sequence. Plasmid transfer was detected only when TraM was able to bind to its cognate sites within oriT. High-affinity binding of TraY in cis to oriTallowed detection of cleavage at nic but was not required for efficient mobilization. Taken together, our results suggest that stable relaxosomes, consisting of TraI, -M, and -Y bound to oriT are preferentially targeted to the transfer apparatus (transferosome).


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