The fully linked HTML version of this article has now been published.
Development ePress online publication date 27 Aug 2003
doi: 10.1242/dev.00711
Research article
Functional tests of enhancer conservation between distantly related species
Ilya Ruvinsky
and
Gary Ruvkun*
* Author for correspondence (e-mail: ruvkun{at}molbio.mgh.harvard.edu)
Expression patterns of orthologous genes are often conserved, even between distantly related organisms, suggesting that once established, developmental programs can be stably maintained over long periods of evolutionary time. Because many orthologous transcription factors are also functionally conserved, one possible model to account for homologous gene expression patterns, is conservation of specific binding sites within cis-regulatory elements of orthologous genes. If this model is correct, a cis-regulatory element from one organism would be expected to function in a distantly related organism. To test this hypothesis, we fused the green fluorescent protein gene to neuronal and muscular enhancer elements from a variety of Drosophila melanogaster genes, and tested whether these would activate expression in the homologous cell types in Caenorhabditis elegans. Regulatory elements from several genes directed appropriate expression in homologous tissue types, suggesting conservation of regulatory sites. However, enhancers of most Drosophila genes tested were not properly recognized in C. elegans, implying that over this evolutionary distance enough changes occurred in cis-regulatory sequences and/or transcription factors to prevent proper recognition of heterospecific enhancers. Comparisons of enhancer elements of orthologous genes between C. elegans and C. briggsae revealed extensive conservation, as well as specific instances of functional divergence. Our results indicate that functional changes in cis-regulatory sequences accumulate on timescales much shorter than the divergence of arthropods and nematodes, and that mechanisms other than conservation of individual binding sites within enhancer elements are responsible for the conservation of expression patterns of homologous genes between distantly related species.
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati 
Twitter What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
|
|
 
S. G. Kuntz, E. M. Schwarz, J. A. DeModena, T. De Buysscher, D. Trout, H. Shizuya, P. W. Sternberg, and B. J. Wold
Multigenome DNA sequence conservation identifies Hox cis-regulatory elements
Genome Res.,
December 1, 2008;
18(12):
1955 - 1968.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
R. R Copley
The animal in the genome: comparative genomics and evolution
Phil Trans R Soc B,
April 27, 2008;
363(1496):
1453 - 1461.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A. G. Jegga, A. Inga, D. Menendez, B. J. Aronow, and M. A. Resnick
Functional evolution of the p53 regulatory network through its target response elements
PNAS,
January 22, 2008;
105(3):
944 - 949.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
M. Lynch
Colloquium Papers: The frailty of adaptive hypotheses for the origins of organismal complexity
PNAS,
May 15, 2007;
104(suppl_1):
8597 - 8604.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A. J.M. Walhout
Unraveling transcription regulatory networks by protein-DNA and protein-protein interaction mapping
Genome Res.,
December 1, 2006;
16(12):
1445 - 1454.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
G. A. Wray
The evolution of embryonic gene expression in sea urchins
Integr. Comp. Biol.,
June 1, 2006;
46(3):
233 - 242.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. Blanco, F. Girard, Y. Kamachi, H. Kondoh, and W. J. Gehring
Functional analysis of the chicken {delta}1-crystallin enhancer activity in Drosophila reveals remarkable evolutionary conservation between chicken and fly
Development,
April 15, 2005;
132(8):
1895 - 1905.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
E. Efimenko, K. Bubb, H. Y. Mak, T. Holzman, M. R. Leroux, G. Ruvkun, J. H. Thomas, and P. Swoboda
Analysis of xbx genes in C. elegans
Development,
April 15, 2005;
132(8):
1923 - 1934.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I. Oda-Ishii, V. Bertrand, I. Matsuo, P. Lemaire, and H. Saiga
Making very similar embryos with divergent genomes: conservation of regulatory mechanisms of Otx between the ascidians Halocynthia roretzi and Ciona intestinalis
Development,
April 1, 2005;
132(7):
1663 - 1674.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
M. L. Givens, R. Kurotani, N. Rave-Harel, N. L. G. Miller, and P. L. Mellon
Phylogenetic Footprinting Reveals Evolutionarily Conserved Regions of the Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Gene that Enhance Cell-Specific Expression
Mol. Endocrinol.,
December 1, 2004;
18(12):
2950 - 2966.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
S. M. Brugger, A. E. Merrill, J. Torres-Vazquez, N. Wu, M.-C. Ting, J. Y.-M. Cho, S. L. Dobias, S. E. Yi, K. Lyons, J. R. Bell, et al.
A phylogenetically conserved cis-regulatory module in the Msx2 promoter is sufficient for BMP-dependent transcription in murine and Drosophila embryos
Development,
October 15, 2004;
131(20):
5153 - 5165.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
|
|
|
© The Company of Biologists Ltd 2003
