title: Deconstructing the complexity of regulating common properties in different cell types: lessons from the delilah gene.
abstract: To understand development we need to understand how transcriptional regulatory mechanisms are employed to confer different cell types with their unique properties. Nonetheless it is also critical to understand how such mechanisms are used to confer different cell types with common cellular properties, such as the ability to adhere to the extracellular matrix. To decode how adhesion is regulated in cells stemming from different pedigrees we analyzed the regulatory region that drives the expression of Dei, which is a transcription factor that serves as a central determinant of cell adhesion, particularly by inducing expression of βPS-integrin. We show that activation of dei transcription is mediated through multiple cis regulatory modules, each driving transcription in a spatially and temporally restricted fashion. Thus the dei gene provides a molecular platform through which cell adhesion can be regulated at the transcriptional level in different cellular milieus. Moreover, we show that these regulatory modules respond, often directly, to central regulators of cell identity in each of the dei-expressing cell types, such as D-Mef2 in muscle cells, Stripe in tendon cells and Blistered in wing intervein cells. These findings suggest that the acquirement of common cellular properties shared by different cell types is embedded within the unique differentiation program dictated to each of these cells by the major determinants of its identity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 31096, Israel.
authors.forename: Atalya
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nachman
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 31096, Israel.
authors.forename: Naomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Halachmi
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 31096, Israel.
authors.forename: Nira
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Matia
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 31096, Israel.
authors.forename: Doron
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Manzur
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 31096, Israel. Electronic address: adis@tx.technion.ac.il.
authors.forename: Adi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Salzberg
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D001483:Base Sequence; D051792:Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism*; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009928:Organ Specificity; D050436:Regulatory Elements, Transcriptional; D026362:Serum Response Factor / Q000378:metabolism; D013710:Tendons / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D014921:Wings, Animal / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D051792:Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Proteins; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D026362:Serum Response Factor; C087361:tx protein, Drosophila
keywords: Cell adhesion; Chordotonal; Differentiation; Enhancer; Gene expression; Integrin; Tendon; Wing; cis Regulatory module