XL Annual Meeting of Brazilian Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Society
SBBq
th
rd
Foz do Iguaçu, PR, Brazil, April 30 to May 3 , 2011
Characterization of the expression pattern of hunchback gene during embryonic
development of Drosophila melanogaster.
Cardoso, M.A.1; Bisch, P.M.1; Lopes, F.J.P.1
1
Laboratório de Física Biológica, IBCCF, UFRJ, RJ, Brazil
Gene expression patterns during cell differentiation are determined by the
regulatory activity of morphogens on several genes. In Drosophila, the Bicoid mRNA
produces a well characterized morphogen. It has maternal origin and is anchored by the
cytoskeleton at the anterior end of the embryo, determining a smooth protein gradient
along the embryo. The hunchback gene interprets the Bicoid gradient in a positiondependent way, generating an abrupt expression pattern. This gene is regulated by
Bicoid on two different promoter regions (P1 or P2).
We intend to characterize the expression pattern of hunchback gene in Drosophila
during nuclear cleavage cycle 14 of embryonic development. For that, we discretized
this cycle into eight temporal classes. We followed the dynamics of hunchback gene
expression, using immunostaining, FISH and confocal microscopy.
Our group developed a regulatory network model for hunchback P1 region, with six
regulatory sites for Bicoid protein and two for Hunchback, capturing the cooperative
binding of Bicoid and self-regulation of hunchback (Lopes, et al., PloS Comput. Biol.,
2008). This model reproduces the phenotypes of mutants and wild-type embryos,
allowing prediction of molecular mechanisms. We expanded the model, including P2
region and considering the synthesis of Hunchback’s mRNA. Both experimental and
theoretical approaches allow us to understand the relevance of P2 region for the
parasegment 4, a key structure for Drosophila embryo development.
Keywords: Drosophila_melanogaster, hunchback.
Supported by: CAPES
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