In many organisms, master control genes coordinately regulate sex-specific aspects of development. SDC-2 was shown to induce hermaphrodite sexual differentiation and activate X chromosome dosage compensation in Caenorhabditis elegans. To control these distinct processes, SDC-2 acts as a strong gene-specific repressor and a weaker chromosome-wide repressor. To initiate hermaphrodite development, SDC-2 associates with the promoter of the male sex-determining gene
her-1 to repress its transcription. To activate dosage compensation, SDC-2 triggers assembly of a specialized protein complex exclusively on hermaphrodite X chromosomes to reduce gene expression by half. SDC-2 can localize to X chromosomes without other components of the dosage compensation complex, suggesting that SDC-2 targets dosage compensation machinery to X chromosomes.AD - Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3204, USA.FAU - Dawes, H EAU - Dawes HEFAU - Berlin, D SAU - Berlin DSFAU - Lapidus, D MAU - Lapidus DMFAU - Nusbaum, CAU - Nusbaum CFAU - Davis, T LAU - Davis TLFAU - Meyer, B JAU - Meyer BJLA - engSI - GENBANK/AF111934ID - GM30702/GM/NIGMSID - T32 GM07127/GM/NIGMSPT - Journal ArticleCY - UNITED STATESTA - ScienceJID - 0404511RN - 0 (Helminth Proteins)RN - 0 (Repressor Proteins)RN - 0 (Sdc-3 protein)RN - 0 (
her-1 protein)SB - IM