Drosophila Kruppel protein is a transcriptional repressor

• Published in: Nature (London) Vol. 346; no. 6279; pp. 76 - 79
• Main Authors: Licht, J.D, Grossel, M.J, Figge, J, Hansen, U.M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing 05-07-1990; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: Alanine; Amino acids; Animals; Base Sequence; Binding sites; Biological and medical sciences; Blastoderm; Cytomegalovirus; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; DNA-Binding Proteins - genetics; Drosophila; Drosophila melanogaster - genetics; Drosophila Proteins; Embryogenesis; Embryonic growth stage; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Fusion protein; Genes; Insects; Juvenile Hormones - genetics; Kinases; Kr protein; Kruppel-Like Transcription Factors; Lactose repressor; Metalloproteins - genetics; Molecular and cellular biology; Molecular genetics; Molecular Sequence Data; Mutation; Operators; Plasmids; Proteins; Recombinant Proteins; Repressor Proteins - genetics; RNA polymerase; Segmentation; Thorax; Transcription; Transcription Factors - genetics; Transcription, Genetic; Transcription. Transcription factor. Splicing. Rna processing; Zinc finger proteins; Human; Embryonic development; Segmentation; Insecta; Drosophila; DNA binding protein; Monkey; Hela cell line; Drosophilidae; Vertebrata; Mammalia; Reporter gene; Cell line; Arthropoda; Primates; Repression derepression; Invertebrata; Transcription factor; Diptera; Hybrid gene
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/346076a0

KRUPPEL (Kr), one of the zygotically active Drosophila segmentation genes, is expressed in a restricted domain during the blastoderm stage of embryogenesis and is involved in the control of development of the thoracic and abdominal segments of the fly. Kr encodes a polypeptide containing DNA-binding zinc-finger motifs, disruptions of which yield Kr mutants. We have assayed the transcriptional activities of wild-type Kr protein as well as Lac repressor/Kr fusion proteins in HeLa and CV-1 cells. Wild-type Kr and a Lac-Kr chimaeric protein repressed transcription from reporter promoters in which a consensus Kr binding site derived from sequences within the even-skipped promoter had been inserted in an upstream position. We mapped the repression function of Kr to an alanine-rich amino-terminal region of the protein, as a Lac/Kr fusion protein containing only amino acids 26-110 of Kr repressed transcription from a reporter promoter containing upstream lac operators. This demonstrates that the DNA-binding and repression activities of the Kr protein are distinct. These data are consistent with genetic evidence that Kr represses even-skipped and hunchback expression, and suggest that Kr is a negative regulator of transcription in Drosophila.