CGC Bibliography Paper 5056

Regulation of organogenesis by the Caenorhabditis elegans FoxA protein PHA-4.

Gaudet J, Mango SE

Medline:

11823633

Citation:

Science 295: 821-825 2002

Type:

ARTICLE

Genes:

ceh-22 myo-2 par-1 pha-4 skn-1 tph-1

Abstract:

The pha-4 locus encodes a forkhead box A (FoxA/HNF3) transcription factor homolog that specifies organ identity for Caenorhabditis elegans pharyngeal cells. We used microarrays to identify pharyngeal genes and analyzed those genes to determine which were direct PHA-4 targets. Our data suggest that PHA-4 directly activates most or all pharyngeal genes. Furthermore, the relative affinity of PHA-4 for different TRTTKRY (R=A/G, K=T/G, Y=T/C) elements modulates the onset of gene expression, providing a mechanism to activate pharyngeal genes at different developmental stages. We suggest that direct transcriptional regulation of entire gene networks may be a common feature of organ identity genes.