title: Quantitative contributions of CtBP-dependent and -independent repression activities of Knirps.
abstract: The Drosophila Knirps protein is a short-range transcriptional repressor that locally inhibits activators by recruiting the CtBP co-repressor. Knirps also possesses CtBP-independent repression activity. The functional importance of multiple repression activities is not well understood, but the finding that Knirps does not repress some cis-regulatory elements in the absence of CtBP suggested that the co-factor may supply a unique function essential to repress certain types of activators. We assayed CtBP-dependent and -independent repression domains of Knirps in Drosophila embryos, and found that the CtBP-independent activity, when provided at higher than normal levels, can repress an eve regulatory element that normally requires CtBP. Dose response analysis revealed that the activity of Knirps containing both CtBP-dependent and -independent repression activities is higher than that of the CtBP-independent domain alone. The requirement for CtBP at certain enhancers appears to reflect the need for overall higher levels of repression, rather than a requirement for an activity unique to CtBP. Thus, CtBP contributes quantitatively, rather than qualitatively, to overall repression function. The finding that both repression activities are simultaneously deployed suggests that the multiple repression activities do not function as cryptic 'backup' systems, but that each contributes quantitatively to total repressor output.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Genetics Program, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1319, USA.
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Struffi
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Corado
authors.forename: Meghana
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kulkarni
authors.forename: David N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Arnosti
mesh_terms: D000429:Alcohol Oxidoreductases; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000196:embryology*; D004625:Embryo, Nonmammalian / Q000502:physiology; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010750:Phosphoproteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D012097:Repressor Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology*; D015183:Restriction Mapping
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D010750:Phosphoproteins; D012097:Repressor Proteins; C074089:kni protein, Drosophila; D000429:Alcohol Oxidoreductases; C096794:C-terminal binding protein