Fig. 8. (A-D) her3 in situ hybridisation in two-somite embryos.
Transcription of her3 is repressed by Gal4 mediated misexpression of
notch1a-intra (A) or her4 (B), and by injection of the
her4 mRNA (C). her3 expression is also repressed by
injection of neurog1 mRNA (D), probably as an indirect consequence of
the activation of her4 (Takke et
al., 1999). (E,F) her5 in situ hybridisation to
two-somite embryos. Transcription is repressed following misexpression of
notch1a-intra by the Gal4-UAS technique. Misexpression of
her4 represses the transcription of her5 to the same extent.
(G) Genotyping of individual embryos by PCR. Embryos that exhibit
transcriptional repression of her3 (or of her5) carry both
transgenes (hsp::gal4 and UAS:her4, three first lanes).
Phenotypically wild-type embryos carry one transgene. (H) Her4 protein can
bind to N boxes in the her3 promoter. Lanes 1-3 contained increasing
amounts of Her3 protein (2, 3 and 4 µg, respectively) and 8000 cpm of an
oligonucleotide derived from the her3 promoter and including the N1
box (Materials and methods). A clear shift in the electrophoretic mobility of
the oligonucleotide can be detected. Lanes 4-6 contain 3 µg of Her4
protein, 8000 cpm of the labelled N1 oligonucleotide, and increasing amounts
of unlabelled oligonucleotide (1, 2 and 4 pM, respectively). The band shift is
competed out. Lanes 7-9 show the same experiment using an oligonucleotide that
contains the N2 box (Materials and methods). Binding to the N2 oligonucleotide
is weaker. Lanes 10-12 show that, also in this case, binding can be competed
with non-radioactive oligonucleotide. Lanes 7-9 and 10-12 contain same amounts
of protein and radioactive and non-radioactive DNA as lanes 1-3 and 4-6,
respectively. Lanes 13-14 and 15-16 show the effects of mutating either the N1
or the N2 box on the mobility of the labelled probe. Binding to the N1 mutant
is still strong. Lanes contain 1 and 5 µg of Her3 protein and 8000 cpm of
the labelled oligonucleotides. As a control, lanes 17-20 contain 8000 cpm of
the wild-type (17-18) and mutated (19-20) oligonucleotides, without Her4
protein.