A C. elegans mediator protein confers regulatory selectivity on lineage-specific expression of a transcription factor gene (original) (raw)

  1. Hong Zhang and
  2. Scott W. Emmons1
  3. Department of Molecular Genetics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, The Bronx, New York 10461 USA

Abstract

The Caenorhabditis elegans caudal homolog, pal-1, is required for neurogenesis in the male tail. We show that expression of_pal-1_ in the postembryonic neuroblast cell V6 can be initiated by two alternate pathways. One pathway, acting in wild type, requires a regulatory element in the fifth pal-1 intron. The other pathway, independent of this element, is normally repressed by the newly identified gene sop-1, which encodes a homolog of the mammalian Mediator complex protein TRAP230. In sop-1 mutants,pal-1 is activated by a pathway that is stimulated by_bar-1/_β-catenin, a component of the Wnt signal transduction pathway. The results support a physiological role of the Mediator complex in conveying regulatory signals to the transcriptional apparatus.

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