TY  - JOUR
TI  - Identification of new modes of Dd-STATa regulation of gene expression in <I>Dictyostelium </I>by <I>in situ</I> hybridisation

AU  - Shimada, Nao
AU  - Maeda, Mineko
AU  - Urushihara, Hideko
AU  - Kawata, Takefumi
T2  - The International Journal of Developmental Biology
AB  - Signal Transducers and Activators of Transcription (STATs) are transcription factors which lie at the end of cytokine and growth signal transduction pathways. 
Dictyostelium Dd-STATa is a functional homologue of metazoan STATs. It is activated by cAMP and, at the slug stage, it translocates into the nuclei of the tip cells, which are a subset of the anterior, prestalk A (pstA) cells. Here we searched for novel Dd-STATa regulated genes by 
in situ hybridisation. A set of 54 cDNA clones whose gene expression patterns are known to be prestalk-specific (Maeda et al., 2003), were chosen as probes and we compared their expression patterns in parental and Dd-STATa-null strains. We identified 13 genes which are candidates for direct induction by Dd-STATa. In the parental strain, most of these genes are expressed in the cone shaped mass of pstAB cells which is located within the prestalk region. These cDNAs show little or no expression in the Dd-STATa-null strain. This contrasts markedly with the paradigmatic ecmB gene which is expressed in pstAB cells in 
parental cells, but which is expressed throughout the prestalk zone in the Dd-STATa-null strain. We also identified several genes which are normally expressed in pstA cells, or throughout the prestalk region, but whose expression is markedly down-regulated in the null mutant. Again, this contrasts with markers derived from the paradigmatic, ecmA gene which are expressed normally in the Dd-STATa-null strain. The identification of these novel genes provides valuable tools to investigate the role of Dd-STATa.
PY  - 2004
DO  - 10.1387/ijdb.041862ns
VL  - 48
IS  - 7
SP  - 679
EP  - 682
J2  - Int. J. Dev. Biol.
LA  - en
SN  - 0214-6282
SN  - 1696-3547
UR  - https://ijdb.ehu.eus/article/041862ns
Y2  - 2024/11/05/17:17:39
ER  -