A tale of tailless.
Drosophila Tailless(Tll) and its vertebrate homologue Tlx are conserved orphan nuclear receptors specifically expressed in the eye and the forebrain. Tll and Tlx act primarily as transcriptional repressors through their interactions with transcriptional corepressors, Atrophin family proteins, and histone-tail/chromatin-modifying factors such as lysine-specific histone demethylase 1 and histone deacetylases. The functional importance of Tll and Tlx is made apparent by the recent discovery that they are expressed in neural stem cells (NSCs) and are required for self-renewal of these cells in both Drosophila and the mouse. This review provides a snapshot of current knowledge about Tll and Tlx and their transcriptional network, which maintains NSCs in developing and adult animals.
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, N.J., USA. gui@biology.rutgers.edu
Hongxing
H
Gui
Mei-Ling
ML
Li
Chih-Cheng
CC
Tsai
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002490:Central Nervous System / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000196:embryology / Q000254:growth & development; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000196:embryology / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D058953:Neural Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D018160:Receptors, Cytoplasmic and Nuclear / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D012097:Repressor Proteins / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
D029721:Drosophila Proteins; C490258:Nr2e1 protein, mouse; D018160:Receptors, Cytoplasmic and Nuclear; D012097:Repressor Proteins; C074090:TLL protein, Drosophila