How the Dorsal gradient works: Insights from postgenome technologies
Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesPublished 22 December 2008Open access
Joung‐Woo Hong, David A. Hendrix, Dmitri Papatsenko, Michael Levine
Citations143
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Abstract
Gradients of extracellular signaling molecules and transcription factors are used in a variety of developmental processes, including the patterning of the Drosophila embryo, the establishment of diverse neuronal cell types in the vertebrate neural tube, and the anterior-posterior patterning of vertebrate limbs. Here, we discuss how a gradient of the maternal transcription factor Dorsal produces complex patterns of gene expression across the dorsal-ventral (DV) axis of the early Drosophila embryo. The identification of 60-70 Dorsal target genes, along with the characterization of approximately 35 associated regulatory DNAs, suggests that there are at least six different regulatory codes driving diverse DV expression profiles.
Keywords
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
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