title: Functional conservation of cis-regulatory elements of heat-shock genes over long evolutionary distances.
abstract: Transcriptional control of gene regulation is an intricate process that requires precise orchestration of a number of molecular components. Studying its evolution can serve as a useful model for understanding how complex molecular machines evolve. One way to investigate evolution of transcriptional regulation is to test the functions of cis-elements from one species in a distant relative. Previous results suggested that few, if any, tissue-specific promoters from Drosophila are faithfully expressed in C. elegans. Here we show that, in contrast, promoters of fly and human heat-shock genes are upregulated in C. elegans upon exposure to heat. Inducibility under conditions of heat shock may represent a relatively simple "on-off" response, whereas complex expression patterns require integration of multiple signals. Our results suggest that simpler aspects of regulatory logic may be retained over longer periods of evolutionary time, while more complex ones may be diverging more rapidly.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolution, Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.
authors.forename: Zhengying
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Kelsie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Eichel
authors.forename: Ilya
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ruvinsky
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D018869:Heat-Shock Response / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D009928:Organ Specificity; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D012045:Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid / Q000235:genetics*; D014158:Transcription, Genetic