Zelda regulates expression of slam in early Drosophila embryo

Abstract

The transcription activation of the zygotic genome is meaningful in the starting stage of development of embryos, it is regulated by a complicated network of protein-DNA interactions and protein-protein interactions including transcription factors and signaling pathways, that follows a time sequence precisely to result in patterned expression and cell fate determination. Zelda as a pioneering transcription factor, modifies expression by binding to highly conserved TAGteam sites. In the present study, we focus on the regulation specific to the gene slow as molasses(slam). The results from in situ hybridization and ChIP-seq assays support the vital influence of Zelda on the expression of slam, yet a TAGteam knockout in vitro mutagenesis experiment is proposed to validate and provide insights to the precise manner of the binding of Zelda. The paper provides analysis of the cis-regulatory event, while more investigations shall be done on the effect of the micro-three-dimensional dynamics of transcription that may result in PolII binding ChIP peaks that appear scattered contiguous crowd, or into the flanking region.