RRC ID 50635
Author Preger-Ben Noon E, Sabarís G, Ortiz DM, Sager J, Liebowitz A, Stern DL, Frankel N.
Title Comprehensive Analysis of a cis-Regulatory Region Reveals Pleiotropy in Enhancer Function.
Journal Cell Rep
Abstract Developmental genes can have complex cis-regulatory regions with multiple enhancers. Early work revealed remarkable modularity of enhancers, whereby distinct DNA regions drive gene expression in defined spatiotemporal domains. Nevertheless, a few reports have shown that enhancers function in multiple developmental stages, implying that enhancers can be pleiotropic. Here, we have studied the activity of the enhancers of the shavenbaby gene throughout D. melanogaster development. We found that all seven shavenbaby enhancers drive expression in multiple tissues and developmental stages. We explored how enhancer pleiotropy is encoded in two of these enhancers. In one enhancer, the same transcription factor binding sites contribute to embryonic and pupal expression, revealing site pleiotropy, whereas for a second enhancer, these roles are encoded by distinct sites. Enhancer pleiotropy may be a common feature of cis-regulatory regions of developmental genes, and site pleiotropy may constrain enhancer evolution in some cases.
Volume 22(11)
Pages 3021-3031
Published 2018-3-13
DOI 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.02.073
PII S2211-1247(18)30268-7
PMID 29539428
MeSH Enhancer Elements, Genetic / genetics* Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental / genetics* Genetic Pleiotropy / genetics* Humans Transcription Factors / metabolism*
IF 8.109
Times Cited 18
Resource
DNA material Drosophila BAC Clone DSE (D. sechellia) (RDB08486) DSE1-007L13
Drosophila