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The Drosophila jing gene is a downstream target in the Trachealess/Tango tracheal pathway

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Abstract

Primary branching in the Drosophila trachea is regulated by the Trachealess (Trh) and Tango (Tgo) basic helix-loop-helix-PAS (bHLH-PAS) heterodimers, the POU protein Drifter (Dfr)/Ventral Veinless (Vvl), and the Pointed (Pnt) ETS transcription factor. The jing gene encodes a zinc finger protein also required for tracheal development. Three Trh/Tgo DNA-binding sites, known as CNS midline elements, in 1.5 kb of jing 5′ cis-regulatory sequence (jing1.5) previously suggested a downstream role for jing in the pathway. Here, we show that jing is a direct downstream target of Trh/Tgo and that Vvl and Pnt are also involved in jing tracheal activation. In vivo lacZ enhancer detection assays were used to identify cis-regulatory elements mediating embryonic expression patterns of jing. A 2.8-kb jing enhancer (jing2.8) drove lacZ expression in all tracheal cell lineages, the CNS midline and Engrailed-positive segmental stripes, mimicking endogenous jing expression. A 1.3-kb element within jing2.8 drove expression that was restricted to Engrailed-positive CNS midline cells and segmental ectodermal stripes. Surprisingly, jing1.5-lacZ expression was restricted to tracheal fusion cells despite the presence of consensus DNA-binding sites for bHLH-PAS, ETS, and POU domain transcription factors. Given the absence of Trh/Tgo DNA-binding sites in the jing1.3 enhancer, these results are consistent with previous observations suggesting a combinatorial basis to Trh-/Tgo-mediated transcriptional regulation in the trachea.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the following for the fly strains and/or reagents: J. Woodgett, S. Crews, C. Klämbt, and J. Casanova. We thank the following for the technical assistance: Xuetao Sun, P. Albert and Anastasia Rogaeva, Bruno Pinheiro, Cathy Fan, and Carla Wood. We thank Stephanie Grainger and Bart Westendorp for their technical advice. This work was supported by grants from CIHR and NSERC to M.S.

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  1. Faculty of Medicine, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1H 8M5

    Tatiana Morozova, Joanne Hackett, Yalda Sedaghat & Margaret Sonnenfeld

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  1. Tatiana Morozova
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  2. Joanne Hackett
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  3. Yalda Sedaghat
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  4. Margaret Sonnenfeld
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Correspondence to Margaret Sonnenfeld.

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Communicated by P. Simpson

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Morozova, T., Hackett, J., Sedaghat, Y. et al. The Drosophila jing gene is a downstream target in the Trachealess/Tango tracheal pathway. Dev Genes Evol 220, 191–206 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-010-0339-z

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