The zinc finger gene Xblimp1 controls anterior endomesodermal cell fate in Spemann's organizer

Autor: Aitana Perea Gómez, Volker Gawantka, Hajo Delius, Christof Niehrs, Siew-Lan Ang, Flavio S. J. de Souza
Rok vydání: 1999
Předmět:
Zdroj: The EMBO journal. 18(21)
ISSN: 0261-4189
Popis: The anterior endomesoderm of the early Xenopus gastrula is a part of Spemann's organizer and is important for head induction. Here we describe Xblimp1, which encodes a zinc finger transcriptional repressor expressed in the anterior endomesoderm. Xblimp1 represses trunk mesoderm and induces anterior endomesoderm in a cooperative manner with the pan-endodermal gene Mix.1. Furthermore, Xblimp1 can cooperate with the BMP inhibitor chordin to induce ectopic heads, while a dominant-negative Xblimp1 inhibits head formation. The head inducer cerberus is positively regulated by Xblimp1 and is able to rescue microcephalic embryos caused by dominant-negative Xblimp1. Our results indicate that Xblimp1 is required for anterior endomesodermal cell fate and head induction.
Databáze: OpenAIRE