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A dermal HOX transcriptional program regulates site-specific epidermal fate.

ABSTRACT: Reciprocal epithelial-mesenchymal interactions shape site-specific development of skin. Here we show that site-specific HOX expression in fibroblasts is cell-autonomous and epigenetically maintained. The distal-specific gene HOXA13 is continually required to maintain the distal-specific transcriptional program in adult fibroblasts, including expression of WNT5A, a morphogen required for distal development. The ability of distal fibroblasts to induce epidermal keratin 9, a distal-specific gene, is abrogated by depletion of HOXA13, but rescued by addition of WNT5A. Thus, maintenance of appropriate HOX transcriptional program in adult fibroblasts may serve as a source of positional memory to differentially pattern the epithelia during homeostasis and regeneration.

SUBMITTER: Rinn JL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2216690 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A dermal HOX transcriptional program regulates site-specific epidermal fate.

Rinn John L JL Wang Jordon K JK Allen Nancy N Brugmann Samantha A SA Mikels Amanda J AJ Liu Helen H Ridky Todd W TW Stadler H Scott HS Nusse Roel R Helms Jill A JA Chang Howard Y HY

Genes & development 20080201 3

Reciprocal epithelial-mesenchymal interactions shape site-specific development of skin. Here we show that site-specific HOX expression in fibroblasts is cell-autonomous and epigenetically maintained. The distal-specific gene HOXA13 is continually required to maintain the distal-specific transcriptional program in adult fibroblasts, including expression of WNT5A, a morphogen required for distal development. The ability of distal fibroblasts to induce epidermal keratin 9, a distal-specific gene, i ...[more]

PMID: 18245445

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Project description:Developmental programs are implemented by regulatory interactions between Transcription Factors (TFs) and their target genes, which remain yet poorly understood. While recent studies have focused on regulatory cascades of TFs that govern early development, little is known on how these are selected and controlled the ultimate cellular effectors of terminal differentiation. We addressed this question during late Drosophila embryogenesis when the finely tuned expression of a TF, Ovo/Shavenbaby (Svb), triggers the morphological differentiation of epidermal trichomes. We used chromatin immunoprecipitation and microarray profiling to identify Svb downstream target genes and show that Svb directly regulates a large set of terminal effectors of trichome formation. Functional assays delineated 18 Svb bound sequences driving specific expression of trichome effectors, with highly similar pattern and dynamics. Coupling computational modeling to functional dissection, we further investigated the regulatory logic of these enhancers. We find that these “terminal” enhancers harbor remarkable features with respect to their functional architectures. Trichome enhancers display weak if any clustering of Svb binding sites. Moreover, the in vivo function of each site relies on its intimate context, with a critical importance of the nucleotides flanking Svb binding sites. Finally, we identify additional cis-regulatory motifs, showing a broad diversity of positioning among trichome enhancers, and that critically contribute to their activity. Taken together, these results show that trichome formation is underpinned by unexpectedly diverse modes of regulation, and shed light on the functional architecture of enhancers governing a terminal differentiation program. Chromatin from 12-14 hour old embryos expressing svb tagged with GFP (Kondo T, Plaza S, Zanet J, Benrabah E, Valenti P, Hashimoto Y, Kobayashi S, Payre F, Kageyama Y: Small peptides switch the transcriptional activity of Shavenbaby during Drosophila embryogenesis. Science 2010, 329:336-339) was collected in duplicate. Chromatin was immunoprecipitated using an antiGFP antibody and input chromatin was used as a control.

Dataset Information

A dermal HOX transcriptional program regulates site-specific epidermal fate.

Publications

A dermal HOX transcriptional program regulates site-specific epidermal fate.

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