Properties of developmental gene regulatory networks
- aDivision of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125; and
- bDepartment of Molecular and Cell Biology, 401 Barker Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
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Edited by Gertrud M. Schüpbach, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved September 11, 2008 (received for review July 24, 2008)
Abstract
The modular components, or subcircuits, of developmental gene regulatory networks (GRNs) execute specific developmental functions, such as the specification of cell identity. We survey examples of such subcircuits and relate their structures to corresponding developmental functions. These relations transcend organisms and genes, as illustrated by the similar structures of the subcircuits controlling the specification of the mesectoderm in the Drosophila embryo and the endomesoderm in the sea urchin, even though the respective subcircuits are composed of nonorthologous regulatory genes.
Footnotes
- 1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: davidson{at}caltech.edu or mlevine{at}berkeley.edu
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Author contributions: E.H.D. and M.L. wrote the paper.
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This paper results from the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences, “Gene Networks in Animal Development and Evolution,” held February 15–16, 2008, at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering in Irvine, CA. The complete program and audio files of most presentations are available on the NAS web site at http://www.nasonline.org/SACKLER_Gene_Networks.
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The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
- © 2008 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
