Negative regulation of proneural gene activity: hairy is a direct transcriptional repressor of achaete.
Open Access
- 15 November 1994
- journal article
- Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Genes & Development
- Vol. 8 (22), 2729-2742
- https://doi.org/10.1101/gad.8.22.2729
Abstract
Hairy (h) acts as a negative regulator in both embryonic segmentation and adult peripheral nervous system (PNS) development in Drosophila. Here, we demonstrate that h, a basic-helix-loop-helix (bHLH) protein, is a sequence-specific DNA-binding protein and transcriptional repressor. We identify the proneural gene achaete (ac) as a direct downstream target of h regulation in vivo. Mutation of a single, evolutionarily conserved, high-affinity h binding site in the upstream region of ac results in the appearance of ectopic sensory organs in adult flies, in a pattern that strongly resembles the phenotype of h mutants. This indicates that direct repression of ac by h plays an essential role in pattern formation in the PNS. Our results demonstrate that HLH proteins negatively regulate ac transcription by at least two distinct mechanisms.Keywords
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