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Originally published In Press as doi:10.1074/jbc.M100080200 on March 15, 2001
J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 276, Issue 22, 18710-18716, June 1, 2001
Conserved Regions of the Drosophila Erect Wing
Protein Contribute Both Positively and Negatively to Transcriptional
Activity*
Irina Kotovsky
Fazio,
Timothy A.
Bolger , and
Grace
Gill§
From the Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School,
Boston, Massachussetts 02115
Genetic studies of the Drosophila erect
wing (ewg) gene have revealed that ewg
has an essential function in the embryonic nervous system and is
required for the specification of certain muscle cells. We have found
that EWG is a site-specific transcriptional activator, and we report
here that evolutionarily conserved regions of EWG contribute both
positively and negatively to transcriptional activity. Using gel
mobility shift assays, we have shown that an EWG dimer binds
specifically to DNA. In transfection assays, EWG activated expression
of a reporter gene bearing specific binding sites. Analysis of deletion
mutants and fusions of EWG to the Gal4 DNA binding domain has
identified a transcriptional activation domain in the C terminus of
EWG. Deletion analysis also revealed a novel inhibitory region in the N
terminus of EWG. Strikingly, both the activation domain and the
inhibitory region are conserved in EWG homologs including human nuclear
respiratory factor 1 (NRF-1) and the sea urchin P3A2 protein. The
strong conservation of elements that determine transcriptional activity
suggests that the EWG, NRF-1, and P3A2 family of proteins shares common
mechanisms of action and has maintained common functions across evolution.
*
This work was supported in part by March of Dimes Birth
Defects Foundation Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award Grant 5-FY98-0555 (to G. G.).The costs of publication of this
article were defrayed in part by the
payment of page charges. The article must therefore be hereby marked
"advertisement" in
accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section
1734 solely to indicate this fact.
Present address: Cell and Molecular Biology Program, Duke
University, Durham, NC 27710.
§
To whom correspondence should be addressed: Dept. of
Pathology, Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115. Tel.: 617-432-0985; Fax: 617-432-1313; E-mail:
grace_gill@hms.harvard.edu.
Copyright © 2001 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

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Copyright © 2001 by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
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