Distinct regulation of atonal in a visual organ of Drosophila: Organ-specific enhancer and lack of autoregulation in the larval eye.

ABSTRACT: Drosophila has three types of visual organs, the larval eyes or Bolwig's organs (BO), the ocelli (OC) and the compound eyes (CE). In all, the bHLH protein Atonal (Ato) functions as the proneural factor for photoreceptors and effects the transition from progenitor cells to differentiating neurons. In this work, we investigate the regulation of ato expression in the BO primordium (BOP). Surprisingly, we find that ato transcription in the BOP is entirely independent of the shared regulatory DNA for the developing CE and OC. The core enhancer for BOP expression, ato^BO, lies ~6kb upstream of the ato gene, in contrast to the downstream location of CE and OC regulatory elements. Moreover, maintenance of ato expression in the neuronal precursors through autoregulation-a common and ancie

SUBMITTER: Zhou Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5358805 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature