title: Retinal Expression of the Drosophila eyes absent Gene Is Controlled by Several Cooperatively Acting Cis-regulatory Elements.
abstract: The eyes absent (eya) gene of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is a member of an evolutionarily conserved gene regulatory network that controls eye formation in all seeing animals. The loss of eya leads to the complete elimination of the compound eye while forced expression of eya in non-retinal tissues is sufficient to induce ectopic eye formation. Within the developing retina eya is expressed in a dynamic pattern and is involved in tissue specification/determination, cell proliferation, apoptosis, and cell fate choice. In this report we explore the mechanisms by which eya expression is spatially and temporally governed in the developing eye. We demonstrate that multiple cis-regulatory elements function cooperatively to control eya transcription and that spacing between a pair of enhancer elements is important for maintaining correct gene expression. Lastly, we show that the loss of eya expression in sine oculis (so) mutants is the result of massive cell death and a progressive homeotic transformation of retinal progenitor cells into head epidermis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, United States of America.
authors.forename: Bonnie M
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6650-4389
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Weasner
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, United States of America.
authors.forename: Brandon P
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3028-8909
authors.initials: BP
authors.lastname: Weasner
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.
authors.forename: Sarah D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Neuman
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.
authors.forename: Arash
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bashirullah
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, United States of America.
authors.forename: Justin P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Kumar
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000235:genetics; D049109:Cell Proliferation / Q000235:genetics; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development*; D005123:Eye / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism; D005136:Eye Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks / Q000235:genetics; D009154:Mutation / Q000235:genetics; D038081:Organogenesis / Q000235:genetics; D050436:Regulatory Elements, Transcriptional / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D005136:Eye Proteins; C092694:eya protein, Drosophila