An ancient yet flexible cis-regulatory architecture allows localized Hedgehog tuning by patched/Ptch1
- University of Michigan Medical School, United States
- Harvard University, United States
- National Institutes of Health, United States
- University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, United States
- Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, United States
Abstract
The Hedgehog signaling pathway is part of the ancient developmental-evolutionary animal toolkit. Frequently co-opted to pattern new structures, the pathway is conserved among eumetazoans yet flexible and pleiotropic in its effects. The Hedgehog receptor, Patched, is transcriptionally activated by Hedgehog, providing essential negative feedback in all tissues. Our locus-wide dissections of the cis-regulatory landscapes of fly patched and mouse Ptch1 reveal abundant, diverse enhancers with stage- and tissue-specific expression patterns. The seemingly simple, constitutive Hedgehog response of patched/Ptch1 is driven by a complex regulatory architecture, with batteries of context-specific enhancers engaged in promoter-specific interactions to tune signaling individually in each tissue, without disturbing patterning elsewhere. This structure-one of the oldest cis-regulatory features discovered in animal genomes-explains how patched/Ptch1 can drive dramatic adaptations in animal morphology while maintaining its essential core function. It may also suggest a general model for the evolutionary flexibility of conserved regulators and pathways.
Article and author information
Author details
Reviewing Editor
- Janet Rossant, University of Toronto, Canada
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health, and with the institutional animal care protocols of Harvard University and The Jackson Laboratories, where the animal experimentation was performed.Animal husbandry and all experiments were performed in accordance with the National Institute of Health guidelines and the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Southern California (protocol #11867).
Version history
- Received: December 4, 2015
- Accepted: May 3, 2016
- Accepted Manuscript published: May 5, 2016 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: May 31, 2016 (version 2)
Copyright
This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.
Metrics
-
- 3,044
- views
-
- 654
- downloads
-
- 39
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
An ancient yet flexible cis-regulatory architecture allows localized Hedgehog tuning by patched/Ptch1
eLife 5:e13550.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.13550
Further reading
-
- Chromosomes and Gene Expression
- Developmental Biology
Developmental programming involves the accurate conversion of signalling levels and dynamics to transcriptional outputs. The transcriptional relay in the Notch pathway relies on nuclear complexes containing the co-activator Mastermind (Mam). By tracking these complexes in real time, we reveal that they promote the formation of a dynamic transcription hub in Notch ON nuclei which concentrates key factors including the Mediator CDK module. The composition of the hub is labile and persists after Notch withdrawal conferring a memory that enables rapid reformation. Surprisingly, only a third of Notch ON hubs progress to a state with nascent transcription, which correlates with polymerase II and core Mediator recruitment. This probability is increased by a second signal. The discovery that target-gene transcription is probabilistic has far-reaching implications because it implies that stochastic differences in Notch pathway output can arise downstream of receptor activation.
-
- Developmental Biology
Large-scale cell flow characterizes gastrulation in animal development. In amniote gastrulation, particularly in avian gastrula, a bilateral vortex-like counter-rotating cell flow, called ‘polonaise movements’, appears along the midline. Here, through experimental manipulations, we addressed relationships between the polonaise movements and morphogenesis of the primitive streak, the earliest midline structure in amniotes. Suppression of the Wnt/planar cell polarity (PCP) signaling pathway maintains the polonaise movements along a deformed primitive streak. Mitotic arrest leads to diminished extension and development of the primitive streak and maintains the early phase of the polonaise movements. Ectopically induced Vg1, an axis-inducing morphogen, generates the polonaise movements, aligned to the induced midline, but disturbs the stereotypical cell flow pattern at the authentic midline. Despite the altered cell flow, induction and extension of the primitive streak are preserved along both authentic and induced midlines. Finally, we show that ectopic axis-inducing morphogen, Vg1, is capable of initiating the polonaise movements without concomitant PS extension under mitotic arrest conditions. These results are consistent with a model wherein primitive streak morphogenesis is required for the maintenance of the polonaise movements, but the polonaise movements are not necessarily responsible for primitive streak morphogenesis. Our data describe a previously undefined relationship between the large-scale cell flow and midline morphogenesis in gastrulation.
