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Drosophila gypsy insulator and yellow enhancers regulate activity of yellow promoter through the same regulatory element

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Abstract

There is ample evidence that the enhancers of a promoterless yellow locus in one homologous chromosome can activate the yellow promoter in the other chromosome where the enhancers are inactive or deleted, which is indicative of a high specificity of the enhancer–promoter interaction in yellow. In this paper, we have found that the yellow sequence from −100 to −69 is essential for stimulation of the heterologous eve (TATA-containing) and white (TATA-less) promoters by the yellow enhancers from a distance. However, the presence of this sequence is not required when the yellow enhancers are directly fused to the heterologous promoters or are activated by the yeast GAL4 activator. Unexpectedly, the same promoter proximal region defines previously described promoter-specific, long-distance repression of the yellow promoter by the gypsy insulator on the mod(mdg4) u1 background. These finding suggest that proteins bound to the −100 to −69 sequence are essential for communication between the yellow promoter and upstream regulatory elements.

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Acknowledgement

We are grateful to C.-T. Wu and A. Lee for providing us with fly lines and for scientific collaboration. This study was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project no. 06-04-48350), by Russian program for young scientists (project no. 15/2006–2009 to M.K.) and an International Research Scholar Award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (to P.G.).

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  1. Department of the Control of Genetic Processes, Institute of Gene Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 34/5 Vavilov St., Moscow, 119334, Russia

    Larisa Melnikova, Margarita Kostuchenko, Margarita Silicheva & Pavel Georgiev

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  1. Larisa Melnikova
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  2. Margarita Kostuchenko
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  3. Margarita Silicheva
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  4. Pavel Georgiev
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Correspondence to Pavel Georgiev.

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Communicated by E.A. Nigg

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Melnikova, L., Kostuchenko, M., Silicheva, M. et al. Drosophila gypsy insulator and yellow enhancers regulate activity of yellow promoter through the same regulatory element. Chromosoma 117, 137–145 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-007-0132-6

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