NSF Award
9808931
This proposal is to characterize the downstream region of the Drosophila even-skipped (eve) gene, which plays a central role in the segmentation of early embryos. Dr. Jaynes' lab will define the precise location of regulatory DNA responsible for the full eve expression pattern, and use this knowledge to study how the gene is regulated in the embryo, as well as to determine the functional requirements for the gene in the various tissues in which it is expressed. Transgenic analysis in flies will be employed both to study regulatory DNA and to express the gene product, EVE, in part of its normal pattern, an approach useful in analyzing protein function. A construct that is capable of complementing the lethality of an eve null allele will be used as a starting point, allowing the construction of tissue specific mutants of eve by removing or altering specific regulatory DNA.<br/><br/>Studies of the specific requirements for eve function in the organism will focus on three uncharacterized aspects of its pattern: early stripe 1, the nervous system, and the posterior region. Although early function has been well studied in stripes 2, 3, and 7, there are indications that stripe 1 function is distinct from that of other early stripes, as it occurs at the boundary between head and thorax, and is required for initiation of cephalic furrow formation during gastrulation. EVE is required in the nervous system for proper neuronal fate specification, but detailed analysis of its functions in specific neuronal lineages is only now becoming feasible. Its requirements in the posterior region of the embryo are of interest because of the conservation of this aspect of its expression in highly divergent species, suggesting that its functions here may be ancestral. The results obtained should provide novel insight into transcription factor regulation and function, both in the embryonic ectoderm and in the nervous system.
