HLH GENE FUNCTION IN NEURONAL CELL DETERMINATION

说明：本建议旨在了解 编码转录因子家族的一组基因的功能 在神经元发育中起着重要作用。bHLH蛋白 包括大家族的正和负调节剂， 转录。正调节器分为两类： 常见的正调节器称为无子体，因其 在性别决定中起作用，形成异二聚体复合物， 来自无毛鳞片复合体的蛋白质。这些异二聚体结合到 称为E盒的特定调控序列。负调节器下降 分为两类：emc蛋白是一种缺乏DNA的HLH蛋白， 结合域它通过抑制蛋白质的形成来抑制转录 异源二聚体。第二类包括产品 分裂位点的增强子和毛状结合到一组不同的 与E盒相关但不同的序列。一套优雅的 考迪博士在《基因与发育》杂志上发表的实验令人信服地 证明多毛的行为抑制了无毛/盾板的活动 通过直接结合DNA靶向启动子。

DESCRIPTION: This proposal is directed towards understanding the function of a set of genes encoding a family of transcription factors which play a central role in neuronal development. The bHLH proteins comprise a large family of both positive and negative regulators of transcription. The positive regulators fall into two classes: a single common positive regulator is called daughterless, so named for its function in sex determination, forms a heterodimeric complex with proteins from the achaete scute complex. These heterodimers bind to specific regulatory sequences called E box. The negative regulators fall into two classes: The emc protein is an HLH protein devoid of a DNA binding domain. It represses transcription by inhibiting the formation of da achaete/scute heterodimers. The second class including the products of the enhancer of split locus and hairy bind to a distinct set of sequences related to but different from the E box. An elegant set of experiments published by Dr. Caudy in Genes and Development convincingly demonstrate that hairy acts to repress the activity of an achaete/scute target promoter by direct binding to DNA.