title: Cloning and characterization of the Drosophila homologue of the AP-2 transcription factor.
abstract: The AP-2 family of transcription factors (AP-2alpha, AP-2beta and AP-2gamma) is temporally and spatially regulated in mammals and has also been implicated in oncogenesis. Here we report the isolation of genomic and cDNA clones encoding the Drosophila homologue of AP-2, designated DAP-2. The predicted amino acid sequence exhibits 42-45% overall identity with the vertebrate AP-2 proteins. A sequence of 107 amino acids within the DNA binding and dimerization domain of the vertebrate AP-2 proteins is highly conserved (90-92%) with the DAP-2 homologue. An in vitro translation product of DAP-2 cDNA binds specifically to AP-2 consensus binding sites. DAP-2 was also shown to be functionally conserved in vivo because transient transfection of a DAP-2 expression plasmid activated transcription through AP-2 binding sites in both mammalian and Drosophila cell lines. DAP-2 is expressed during early embryogenesis and DAP-2 transcripts are also detected in the adult. Whole-mount in situ hybridizations demonstrated that DAP-2 is expressed initially at stage 9 of Drosophila embryonic development and that DAP-2 transcripts are detected in regions of the brain, eye-antennal disc, optical lobe, antenno-maxillary complex, and in a subset of cells of the ventral nerve cord. The cloning of DAP-2 and the identification of the DAP-2 expression pattern during embryogenesis provides a starting point to address the function of AP-2 during differentiation and development in a well understood model system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Tumor Biology, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston 77030, USA.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bauer
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: McGuffin
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Mattox
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Tainsky
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D004330:Drosophila / Q000196:embryology / Q000235:genetics*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D005091:Exons; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D007438:Introns; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D050656:Transcription Factor AP-2; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D018076:DNA, Complementary; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; C493674:TfAP-2 protein, Drosophila; D050656:Transcription Factor AP-2; D014157:Transcription Factors