Specific domains of FoxD4/5 activate and repress neural transcription factor genes to control the progression of immature neural ectoderm to differentiating neural plate.

ABSTRACT: FoxD4/5, a forkhead transcription factor, plays a critical role in establishing and maintaining the embryonic neural ectoderm. It both up-regulates genes that maintain a proliferative, immature neural ectoderm and down-regulates genes that promote the transition to a differentiating neural plate. We constructed deletion and mutant versions of FoxD4/5 to determine which domains are functionally responsible for these opposite activities, which regulate the critical developmental transition of neural precursors to neural progenitors to differentiating neural plate cells. Our results show that up-regulation of genes that maintain immature neural precursors (gem, zic2) requires the Acidic blob (AB) region in the N-terminal portion of the protein, indicating that the AB is the transactivating do

SUBMITTER: Neilson KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3679181 | biostudies-literature | 2012 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature