13
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      The Wg and Dpp morphogens regulate gene expression by modulating the frequency of transcriptional bursts

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Morphogen signaling contributes to the patterned spatiotemporal expression of genes during development. One mode of regulation of signaling-responsive genes is at the level of transcription. Single-cell quantitative studies of transcription have revealed that transcription occurs intermittently, in bursts. Although the effects of many gene regulatory mechanisms on transcriptional bursting have been studied, it remains unclear how morphogen gradients affect this dynamic property of downstream genes. Here we have adapted single molecule fluorescence in situ hybridization (smFISH) for use in the Drosophila wing imaginal disc in order to measure nascent and mature mRNA of genes downstream of the Wg and Dpp morphogen gradients. We compared our experimental results with predictions from stochastic models of transcription, which indicated that the transcription levels of these genes appear to share a common method of control via burst frequency modulation. Our data help further elucidate the link between developmental gene regulatory mechanisms and transcriptional bursting.

          Related collections

          Most cited references39

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Nature, nurture, or chance: stochastic gene expression and its consequences.

          Gene expression is a fundamentally stochastic process, with randomness in transcription and translation leading to cell-to-cell variations in mRNA and protein levels. This variation appears in organisms ranging from microbes to metazoans, and its characteristics depend both on the biophysical parameters governing gene expression and on gene network structure. Stochastic gene expression has important consequences for cellular function, being beneficial in some contexts and harmful in others. These situations include the stress response, metabolism, development, the cell cycle, circadian rhythms, and aging.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: not found
            • Article: not found

            Mechanisms of TGF-β Signaling from Cell Membrane to the Nucleus

              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              P[acman]: a BAC transgenic platform for targeted insertion of large DNA fragments in D. melanogaster.

              We describe a transgenesis platform for Drosophila melanogaster that integrates three recently developed technologies: a conditionally amplifiable bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC), recombineering, and bacteriophage PhiC31-mediated transgenesis. The BAC is maintained at low copy number, facilitating plasmid maintenance and recombineering, but is induced to high copy number for plasmid isolation. Recombineering allows gap repair and mutagenesis in bacteria. Gap repair efficiently retrieves DNA fragments up to 133 kilobases long from P1 or BAC clones. PhiC31-mediated transgenesis integrates these large DNA fragments at specific sites in the genome, allowing the rescue of lethal mutations in the corresponding genes. This transgenesis platform should greatly facilitate structure/function analyses of most Drosophila genes.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Reviewing Editor
                Role: Senior Editor
                Journal
                eLife
                Elife
                eLife
                eLife
                eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
                2050-084X
                22 June 2020
                2020
                : 9
                : e56076
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Molecular Biosciences, Northwestern University EvanstonUnited States
                [2 ]NSF-Simons Center for Quantitative Biology, Northwestern University EvanstonUnited States
                [3 ]Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University EvanstonUnited States
                Baylor College of Medicine United States
                University of California, Los Angeles United States
                Baylor College of Medicine United States
                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0343-0156
                Article
                56076
                10.7554/eLife.56076
                7340504
                32568073
                9f16f78e-ccea-4d09-aa49-edd8eb008cef
                © 2020, Bakker et al

                This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 16 February 2020
                : 18 June 2020
                Funding
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000002, National Institutes of Health;
                Award ID: R35GM118144
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000002, National Institutes of Health;
                Award ID: T32CA080621
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001, National Science Foundation;
                Award ID: 1764421
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000893, Simons Foundation;
                Award ID: 597491
                Award Recipient :
                The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Developmental Biology
                Custom metadata
                Experimental results in Drosophila support a model in which gene expression is fundamentally controlled by morphogens tuning the same transcription parameter for genes that are expressed in highly diverse patterns.

                Life sciences
                burst frequency,morphogen,wing disc,d. melanogaster
                Life sciences
                burst frequency, morphogen, wing disc, d. melanogaster

                Comments

                Comment on this article