The long term objectives of this project are to understand how genes interact to specify the body plan during development. Several tissue specific mammalian positive transcriptional activators share an approximately 150 amino acid region, the POU domain. This proposal focuses on three newly isolated POU domain genes from Drosophila: what are their structures, what are the natures of their protein products, when and where in development are they expressed, and what are the effects of perturbing their normal expression. The DNA sequences of cDNA clones originating from each of the genes will show the expected structure of the protein products and will allow their comparison with the mammalian POU domain genes. Determination of the expression patterns of each gene by in situ hybridization and by immunohistochemical staining with antibodies will help indicate what their roles in regulating development may be. Fly strains containing each of the three genes under heat inducible control will be made. The effects of disrupting the normal expression of the genes will also show the roles each may play in development. %%% A central question in developmental biology is how genes act to produce a complex structure. This project is to investigate that question by examining the regulation of genes involved in early patterning events in the Drosophila embryo.
