Quantitative models of the mechanisms that control genome-wide patterns of transcription factor binding during early Drosophila development.

ABSTRACT: Transcription factors that drive complex patterns of gene expression during animal development bind to thousands of genomic regions, with quantitative differences in binding across bound regions mediating their activity. While we now have tools to characterize the DNA affinities of these proteins and to precisely measure their genome-wide distribution in vivo, our understanding of the forces that determine where, when, and to what extent they bind remains primitive. Here we use a thermodynamic model of transcription factor binding to evaluate the contribution of different biophysical forces to the binding of five regulators of early embryonic anterior-posterior patterning in Drosophila melanogaster. Predictions based on DNA sequence and in vitro protein-DNA affinities alone achieve a corre

SUBMITTER: Kaplan T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3033374 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature