title: Drosophila Krüppel protein is a transcriptional repressor.
abstract: Krüppel (Kr), one of the zygotically active Drosophila segmentation genes, is expressed in a restricted domain during the blastoderm stage of embryogenesis and is involved in the control of development of the thoracic and abdominal segments of the fly. Kr encodes a polypeptide containing DNA-binding zinc-finger motifs, disruptions of which yield Kr mutants. We have assayed the transcriptional activities of wild-type Kr protein as well as Lac repressor/Kr fusion proteins in HeLa and CV-1 cells. Wild-type Kr and a Lac-Kr chimaeric protein repressed transcription from reporter promoters in which a consensus Kr binding site derived from sequences within the even-skipped promoter had been inserted in an upstream position. We mapped the repression function of Kr to an alanine-rich amino-terminal region of the protein, as a Lac/Kr fusion protein containing only amino acids 26-110 of Kr repressed transcription from a reporter promoter containing upstream lac operators. This demonstrates that the DNA-binding and repression activities of the Kr protein are distinct. These data are consistent with genetic evidence that Kr represses even-skipped and hunchback expression, and suggest that Kr is a negative regulator of transcription in Drosophila.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Eukaryotic Transcription, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Licht
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Grossel
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Figge
authors.forename: U M
authors.initials: UM
authors.lastname: Hansen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics*; D007605:Juvenile Hormones / Q000235:genetics*; D051741:Kruppel-Like Transcription Factors; D008667:Metalloproteins / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D012097:Repressor Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics*; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D007605:Juvenile Hormones; C497244:Kr protein, Drosophila; D051741:Kruppel-Like Transcription Factors; D008667:Metalloproteins; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D012097:Repressor Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors