How the Dorsal gradient works: insights from postgenome technologies.
Gradients of extracellular signaling molecules and transcription factors are used in a variety of developmental processes, including the patterning of the Drosophila embryo, the establishment of diverse neuronal cell types in the vertebrate neural tube, and the anterior-posterior patterning of vertebrate limbs. Here, we discuss how a gradient of the maternal transcription factor Dorsal produces complex patterns of gene expression across the dorsal-ventral (DV) axis of the early Drosophila embryo. The identification of 60-70 Dorsal target genes, along with the characterization of approximately 35 associated regulatory DNAs, suggests that there are at least six different regulatory codes driving diverse DV expression profiles.
Hong
Joung-Woo
JW
Division of Genetics, Genomics, and Development, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Center for Integrative Genomics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Hendrix
David A
DA
Papatsenko
Dmitri
D
Levine
Michael S
MS
D000818:Animals; D019521:Body Patterning / Q000235:genetics; D004330:Drosophila; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000502:physiology; D004625:Embryo, Nonmammalian; D004627:Embryonic Induction; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental / Q000502:physiology*; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000502:physiology; D010750:Phosphoproteins / Q000502:physiology; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000502:physiology*
D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D010750:Phosphoproteins; D014157:Transcription Factors; C062236:dl protein, Drosophila