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Announcements. Exam this Wednesday: my “half” is 40%. Gerry Prody’s “half” is 60%. Exam regrade policy: if you have a question about how I graded an answer, send me an email outlining exactly how you felt I went wrong, and submit the exam for regrade.
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Announcements • Exam this Wednesday: my “half” is 40%. Gerry Prody’s “half” is 60%. • Exam regrade policy: if you have a question about how I graded an answer, send me an email outlining exactly how you felt I went wrong, and submit the exam for regrade. • You MUST (1) make this request in writing, and you MUST (2) submit the exam, both within 5 business days of its return. • PLEASE NOTE that I will regrade the entire exam – your grade may go up or it may go down (more likely).
Biol/Chem 473 Schulze lecture 4: Eukaryotic gene regulation: Early Drosophila development
Insulators may function to organize the genome into transcriptionally autonomous domains
The best model organism in the whole world!!!! Drosophila melanogaster: “black bellied dew lover” – fruit fly
The early Drosophila embryo is a syncytium (a bag of nuclei)
Patterning genes classified by mutant effect on segmentation The hierarchical nature of these interactions can be shown by genetics: mutations in earlier levels of the hierarchy severely disrupt later patterning.
Maternal genes • Required before the embryo starts transcribing its own genes • Mother expresses these genes during oogenesis (mum packs a lunch…) • Localization of maternal gene products is the first step in the cascade… http://flymove.uni-muenster.de/Processes/Segmentation/
Earliest stages of development run on mRNA’s and proteins deposited by mum during oogenesis • An efficient way to localize and concentrate proteins is by localization of mRNA in a translationally repressed state, followed by activation of translation when the mRNA reaches its destination. • How are mRNA’s localized? • How are mRNA’s repressed? • How are localized mRNA’s then, when required, de-repressed?
Maternal effect: Mum packs a lunch for the embryo Anterior end Posterior end
Maternal effect: Mum packs a lunch for the embryo • The bicoid gene encodes a homeodomain transcription factor. • The oskar gene encodes something we are not quite sure about. • The gurken gene encodes TGFß homolog - EGF-R ligand, required for dorso / ventral patterning of the egg and embryo. • The nanos gene encodes a translational repressor - zinc finger that targets Hunchback- and Bicoid-mRNAs to achieve posterior identity.
Maternal effect: Mum packs a lunch for the embryo • Polarity of the oocyte cytoskeleton is essential for maternal factor localization (gurken plays a role here). • Bicoid mRNA gets localized to anterior pole because another protein, called Staufen, recognizes a structure in the 3’UTR of the bicoid message (and Staufen protein is itself localized by the polarity of the cytoskeleton.
Maternal effect: Mum packs a lunch for the embryo • Bicoid mRNA gets localized to anterior pole because another protein, called Staufen, recognizes a structure in the 3’UTR of the bicoid message (and Staufen protein is itself localized by the polarity of the cytoskeleton.
Maternal effect: Mum packs a lunch for the embryo These dsRNA UTR sequences are required for anterior localization of bicoid mRNA by Staufen protein • Bicoid mRNA gets localized to anterior pole because another protein, called Staufen, recognizes a structure in the 3’UTR of the bicoid message (and Staufen protein is itself localized by the polarity of the cytoskeleton).
Gap genes • The gap genes are expressed by the zygote (activated in the syncytial blastoderm) • Their expression patterns are regulated by the maternal gene products, and they regulate each other • They divide the embryo into broad, unique domains containing different combinations of transcription factors http://flymove.uni-muenster.de/Processes/Segmentation/
Pair-rule genes • Pair-rule genes are expressed just before cellularization in patterns of 7 stripes (half the number of segments in a wild type larva) • Some pair-rule genes respond to patterns already laid down by the maternal and gap genes, while others are regulated by other pair-rule genes • Pair rule gene expression is very dynamic! (pretty pictures) http://flymove.uni-muenster.de/Processes/Segmentation/
Segment polarity genes • Segment polarity genes are expressed at the onset of gastrulation • They are expressed in 14 segment bands, refining the patterns of all the previous genes in the hierarchy. Maternal, gap and pair-rule gene expression begins to fade away http://flymove.uni-muenster.de/Processes/Segmentation/
ASSIGNED PAPER:Transcriptional regulation of a pair-rule stripe in Drosophila Small, S. et al., Genes & Development (1991) 5: 827-839
Main players • Even-skipped (eve) is a homeo-box containing transcription factor. • Hunchback (hb) has multiple Zn fingers. • Bicoid (bic) is a homeo-box containing transcription factor. • Kruppel (Kr) contains a Zn finger. • Giant (gt) contains a Leucine zipper.
Wild type expression patterns of putative regulators of eve stripe 2 • even-skipped protein is red • hunchback protein is green • overlap of expression is yellow
Wild type expression patterns of putative regulators of eve stripe 2 • even-skipped protein is red • Kruppel protein is green • overlap of expression is yellow
Wild type expression patterns of putative regulators of eve stripe 2 • even-skipped protein is green • giant protein is red • Overlap of expression is yellow
Wild type expression patterns of putative regulators of eve stripe 2 High levels of gt High levels of Kr
Wild type expression patterns of putative regulators of eve stripe 2 High levels of gt High levels of Kr What predictions arise from this picture?
eve-lacZ gene fusion This is a transgene: gets injected into the embryo (“P transformed embryos”), integrates into the genome and is expressed stably along with all the other genes. BUT: this transgene will express lacZ in an even-skipped-stripe 2 dependent manner!
Questions to ask about in vivo expression patterns • How do we know the order in which patterning genes act in development? • How were potential trans-acting regulators of stripe 2 identified? • What would happen to the domain of expression of eve stripe 2 in giant or Kruppel mutant embryos? • Do these vivo expression patterns indicate direct interaction between Kr and gt and the eve stripe 2 regulatory region?