Phenotypic robustness conferred by apparently redundant transcriptional enhancers

Nicolás Frankel, Gregory K. Davis, Diego Vargas, Shu Wang, François Payre and David L. Stern ()
Additional contact information
Nicolás Frankel: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
Gregory K. Davis: Bryn Mawr College, 101 N. Merion Ave, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania 19010, USA
Diego Vargas: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
Shu Wang: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
François Payre: Université de Toulouse and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de Biologie du Développement, UMR5547, Toulouse, F-31062, France
David L. Stern: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

Nature, 2010, vol. 466, issue 7305, 490-493

Abstract: Back-up enhancers protect phenotype Transcriptional enhancers are segments of regulatory DNA located some distance from the coding region of a gene. Sometimes, several of them can serve apparently redundant functions — driving the production of a gene's messenger RNA at the same stage and place in embryonic development. Frankel et al. now demonstrate in Drosophila that such 'redundant' enhancers (in this case, two enhancers of the embryo-patterning gene shavenbaby), by contributing higher overall levels of transcription, ensure robustness of phenotypes against both genetic and environmental perturbations; for example, mutations in other genes or temperature changes that would otherwise lead to aberrant development.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09158 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nature:v:466:y:2010:i:7305:d:10.1038_nature09158

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

DOI: 10.1038/nature09158

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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