Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Clough, Emily
• Jimenez, Erin
• Kim, Yoo-Ah
• Whitworth, Cale
• Neville, Megan C.
• Hempel, Leonie U.
• Pavlou, Hania J.
• Chen, Zhen-Xia
• Sturgill, David
• Dale, Ryan K.
• Smith, Harold E.
• Przytycka, Teresa M.
• Goodwin, Stephen F.
• Van Doren, Mark
• Oliver, Brian

Titel

Sex- and Tissue-Specific Functions of Drosophila Doublesex Transcription Factor Target Genes

Ist Teil von

• Developmental cell, 2014-12, Vol.31 (6), p.761-773

Ort / Verlag

United States: Elsevier Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Quelle

ScienceDirect

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Primary sex-determination “switches” evolve rapidly, but Doublesex (DSX)-related transcription factors (DMRTs) act downstream of these switches to control sexual development in most animal species. Drosophila dsx encodes female- and male-specific isoforms (DSXF and DSXM), but little is known about how dsx controls sexual development, whether DSXF and DSXM bind different targets, or how DSX proteins direct different outcomes in diverse tissues. We undertook genome-wide analyses to identify DSX targets using in vivo occupancy, binding site prediction, and evolutionary conservation. We find that DSXF and DSXM bind thousands of the same targets in multiple tissues in both sexes, yet these targets have sex- and tissue-specific functions. Interestingly, DSX targets show considerable overlap with targets identified for mouse DMRT1. DSX targets include transcription factors and signaling pathway components providing for direct and indirect regulation of sex-biased expression. •DSX occupies thousands of high-affinity and well-conserved sites in the genome•Most genes with high-affinity binding are occupied regardless of sex or tissue•Predicted DSX targets have striking tissue- and sex-specific knockdown phenotypes•DSX binding is necessary, but not sufficient, for regulation of most target genes Clough et al. utilize whole-genome approaches to identify targets of Drosophila Doublesex (Dsx), a conserved sex-determination regulator. Although fly Dsx has different female and male forms, it occupies the same high-affinity sites in both sexes, suggesting that other factors collaborate with Dsx to promote the development of sexually dimorphic features.