Dynamic evolution of precise regulatory encodings creates the clustered site signature of enhancers

Justin Crocker, Nathan Potter and Albert Erives ()
Additional contact information
Justin Crocker: Dartmouth College
Nathan Potter: Dartmouth College
Albert Erives: Dartmouth College

Nature Communications, 2010, vol. 1, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Concentration gradients of morphogenic proteins pattern the embryonic axes of Drosophila by activating different genes at different concentrations. The neurogenic ectoderm enhancers (NEEs) activate different genes at different threshold levels of the Dorsal (Dl) morphogen, which patterns the dorsal/ventral axis. NEEs share a unique arrangement of highly constrained DNA-binding sites for Dl, Twist (Twi), Snail (Sna) and Suppressor of Hairless (Su(H)), and encode the threshold variable in the precise length of DNA that separates one well-defined Dl element from a Twi element. However, NEEs also possess dense clusters of variant Dl sites. Here, we show that these increasingly variant sites are eclipsed relic elements, which were superseded by more recently evolved threshold encodings. Given the divergence in egg size during Drosophila lineage evolution, the observed characteristic clusters of divergent sites indicate a history of frequent selection for changes in threshold responses to the Dl morphogen gradient and confirm the NEE structure/function model.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1102 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:1:y:2010:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms1102

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1102

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().