Fig. 5.

Strategy for identifying chromatin-remodeling complex target genes and their function in developing blood vessels. Left Panel In wild-type vascular cells, chromatin-remodeling complexes modulate expression of selective target genes and thereby regulate the function of those genes during vascular development. Right Panel When chromatin-remodeling complex components are genetically mutated in vascular cells, misregulated target genes can produce abnormal vascular phenotypes. Once vascular phenotypes are identified in mutant embryos (1), comparison of transcripts from mutant and wild-type embryos can reveal genes whose misregulation mediates the phenotypes (2). To verify candidate target genes of chromatin-remodeling complexes, vascular cells isolated from wild-type embryos at the developmental stage corresponding to the onset of the mutant phenotypes can be subjected to chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays to reveal whether the chromatin-remodeling complex of interest binds regulatory regions for the candidate target gene