Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1995 Dec;15(12):6601-12.
doi: 10.1128/MCB.15.12.6601.

Functional reconstruction of trans regulation of the Ultrabithorax promoter by the products of two antagonistic genes, trithorax and Polycomb

Y L Chang  1 , B O King, M O'Connor, A Mazo, D H Huang
Affiliations

Functional reconstruction of trans regulation of the Ultrabithorax promoter by the products of two antagonistic genes, trithorax and Polycomb

Y L Chang et al. Mol Cell Biol. 1995 Dec.

Abstract

Maintenance of the "on-off" state of Drosophila homeotic genes in Antennapedia and bithorax complexes requires activities of the trithorax and Polycomb groups of genes. To identify cis-acting sequences for functional reconstruction of regulation by both trithorax and Polycomb, we examined the expression patterns of several Ubx-lacZ transgenes that carry upstream fragments corresponding to a region of approximately 50 kb. A 14.5-kb fragment from the postbithorax/bithoraxoid region of Ultrabithorax exhibited proper regulation by both trithorax and Polycomb in the embryonic central nervous system. Using a Drosophila haploid cell line for transient expression, we found that trithorax or Polycomb can function independently through this upstream fragment to activate or repress the Ultrabithorax promoter, respectively. Studies of deletion mutants of trithorax and Polycomb demonstrated that trithorax-dependent activation requires the central zinc-binding domain, while Polycomb-dependent repression requires the intact chromodomain. In addition, trithorax-dependent activity can be abrogated by increasing the amount of Polycomb, suggesting a competitive interaction between the products of trithorax and Polycomb. Deletion analysis of this fragment demonstrated that a 440-bp fragment contains response elements for both trithorax and Polycomb. Furthermore, we showed that the integrity of the proximal promoter region is essential for trithorax-dependent activation, implicating a long-range interaction for promoter activation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Trends Genet. 1990 Dec;6(12):416-21 - PubMed
    1. Cell. 1994 Jul 29;78(2):181-9 - PubMed
    1. Mol Cell Biol. 1993 Dec;13(12):7961-70 - PubMed
    1. EMBO J. 1992 Oct;11(10):3653-61 - PubMed
    1. Dev Biol. 1993 Jul;158(1):131-44 - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources