Functional characterization of PAS and HES family bHLH transcription factors during the metamorphosis of the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum.

ABSTRACT: The basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors are present in animals, plants and fungi and play important roles in the control of cellular proliferation, tissue differentiation, development and detoxification. Although insect genomes contain more than 50 helix-loop-helix transcription factors, the functions of only a few are known. RNAi has become a widely used tool to knock-down the expression to analyze the function of genes. As RNAi works well in Tribolium castaneum, we utilized this insect and RNAi to determine functions of 19 bHLH transcription factors belonging to PAS and HES families during the larval stages of the red flour beetle, T. castaneum. We searched the genome sequence of T. castaneum and identified 53 bHLH genes. Phylogenetic analyses classified these 53 genes into ten

SUBMITTER: Bitra K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2760604 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature