a multiscale investigation of bicoid-dependent transcriptional events in drosophila embryos一个多尺度的调查在果蝇胚胎bicoid-dependent转录活动.pdfVIP

A Multiscale Investigation of Bicoid-Dependent Transcriptional Events in Drosophila Embryos 1. 1,3. 1 1,2 Feng He , Jie Ren , Wei Wang , Jun Ma * 1 Division of Biomedical Informatics, Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America, 2 Division of Developmental Biology, Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America, 3 Key Laboratory of Cell Proliferation and Differentiation, Center of Developmental Biology and Genetics, College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China Abstract 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 trans