A Multiscale Investigation of Bicoid-Dependent Transcriptional Events in   Drosophila Embryos

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0019122

CORC > 北京大学 > 生命科学学院

	A Multiscale Investigation of Bicoid-Dependent Transcriptional Events in Drosophila Embryos
	He, Feng ; Ren, Jie ; Wang, Wei ; Ma, Jun
刊名	plos one
	2011
关键词	POSITIONAL INFORMATION MORPHOGEN GRADIENT DOSAGE COMPENSATION GENE-EXPRESSION PROTEIN DETERMINES CHROMOSOME ACTIVATION HUNCHBACK DYNAMICS
DOI	10.1371/journal.pone.0019122
英文摘要	Background: Morphogen molecules form concentration gradients to provide spatial information to cells in a developing embryo. Precisely how cells decode such information to form patterns with sharp boundaries remains an open question. For example, it remains controversial whether the Drosophila morphogenetic protein Bicoid (Bcd) plays a transient or sustained role in activating its target genes to establish sharp expression boundaries during development. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this study, we describe a method to simultaneously detect Bcd and the nascent transcripts of its target genes in developing embryos. This method allows us to investigate the relationship between Bcd and the transcriptional status of individual copies of its target genes on distinct scales. We show that, on three scales analyzed concurrently-embryonic, nuclear and local, the actively-transcribing gene copies are associated with high Bcd concentrations. These results underscore the importance of Bcd as a sustained input for transcriptional decisions of individual copies of its target genes during development. We also show that the Bcd-dependent transcriptional decisions have a significantly higher noise than Bcd-dependent gene products, suggesting that, consistent with theoretical studies, time and/or space averaging reduces the noise of Bcd-activated transcriptional output. Finally, our analysis of an X-linked Bcd target gene reveals that Bcd-dependent transcription bursts at twice the frequency in males as in females, providing a mechanism for dosage compensation in early Drosophila embryos. Conclusion/Significance: Our study represents a first experimental uncovering of the actions of Bcd in controlling the actual transcriptional events while its positional information is decoded during development. It establishes a sustained role of Bcd in transcriptional decisions of individual copies of its target genes to generate sharp expression boundaries. It also provides an experimental evaluation of the effect of time and/or space averaging on Bcd-dependent transcriptional output, and establishes a dosage compensation mechanism in early Drosophila embryos.; Multidisciplinary Sciences; SCI(E); 14; ARTICLE; 4; 6
语种	英语
内容类型	期刊论文
源URL	[http://ir.pku.edu.cn/handle/20.500.11897/394849]
专题	生命科学学院
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	He, Feng,Ren, Jie,Wang, Wei,et al. A Multiscale Investigation of Bicoid-Dependent Transcriptional Events in Drosophila Embryos[J]. plos one,2011.
APA	He, Feng,Ren, Jie,Wang, Wei,&Ma, Jun.(2011).A Multiscale Investigation of Bicoid-Dependent Transcriptional Events in Drosophila Embryos.plos one.
MLA	He, Feng,et al."A Multiscale Investigation of Bicoid-Dependent Transcriptional Events in Drosophila Embryos".plos one (2011).