TY - JOUR
T1 - Transcriptional activation and repression by Ultrabithorax proteins in cultured Drosophila cells
AU - Krasnow, Mark A.
AU - Saffman, Emma E.
AU - Kornfeld, Kerry
AU - Hogness, David S.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Carl Thummel for encouraging these experiments, and Carl Thummel, Howard Lipshitz, and Elizabeth Gavis for providing some of the plasmids used in the initial experiments and for valuable discussions. We also thank Gary Winslow, Shigeo Hayashi, and Matthew Scott for exchanging information, ideas, and plasmids, including the deletion mutants of the Ubx promoter plasmid. Mark Biggin, Bruce En-, gland, and Michael O’Connor generously provided unpublished plasmids and oligonucleotides. We thank Stephen Elledge, Elizabeth Gavis, Brad Johnson, Evelyn Parker, and Juan Botas for their comments on the manuscript. M. A. K. was a fellow of the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation and is a Lucille P Markey Scholar in Biomedical Science; E. E. S. was supported by a training grant from the National Institute of General Medical Science; and K. K. was supported by the Medical Scientist Training Program of the National Institutes of Health. This work was supported by grants from the Lucille f? Markey Charitable Trust (to M. A. K.) and the National Institutes of Health (to D. S. H.).
PY - 1989/6/16
Y1 - 1989/6/16
N2 - Homeotic genes of Drosophila melanogaster such as Ultrabithorax (Ubx) and Antennapedia (Antp) have long been thought to select metameric identity during development by controlling the expression of various target genes. Here we describe a cotransfection assay in cultured D. melanogaster cells that is used to demonstrate that Ubx proteins (UBX) can repress an Antp promoter fusion and activate a Ubx promoter fusion, activities predicted from genetic studies. We show (a) that UBX proteins regulated the level of accurately initiated Antp P1 and Ubx transcripts, (b) that activation of the Ubx promoter required a downstream cluster of UBX binding sites, and (c) that binding site sequences were sufficient to confer regulation on a heterologous promoter, regardless of their orientation or precise position. We conclude that UBX proteins are transcriptional repressors and activators, and that their actions are mediated by binding to promoter region sequences. Each member of the UBX protein family has similar regulatory abilities, but the properties of synthetic mutant forms suggest that UBX proteins may have a modular design similar to other transcriptional regulators.
AB - Homeotic genes of Drosophila melanogaster such as Ultrabithorax (Ubx) and Antennapedia (Antp) have long been thought to select metameric identity during development by controlling the expression of various target genes. Here we describe a cotransfection assay in cultured D. melanogaster cells that is used to demonstrate that Ubx proteins (UBX) can repress an Antp promoter fusion and activate a Ubx promoter fusion, activities predicted from genetic studies. We show (a) that UBX proteins regulated the level of accurately initiated Antp P1 and Ubx transcripts, (b) that activation of the Ubx promoter required a downstream cluster of UBX binding sites, and (c) that binding site sequences were sufficient to confer regulation on a heterologous promoter, regardless of their orientation or precise position. We conclude that UBX proteins are transcriptional repressors and activators, and that their actions are mediated by binding to promoter region sequences. Each member of the UBX protein family has similar regulatory abilities, but the properties of synthetic mutant forms suggest that UBX proteins may have a modular design similar to other transcriptional regulators.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0024313337&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/0092-8674(89)90341-3
DO - 10.1016/0092-8674(89)90341-3
M3 - Article
C2 - 2567632
AN - SCOPUS:0024313337
VL - 57
SP - 1031
EP - 1043
JO - Cell
JF - Cell
SN - 0092-8674
IS - 6
ER -