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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1993 Jul 1;90(13):6360–6364. doi: 10.1073/pnas.90.13.6360

Functional specificity of the Antennapedia homeodomain.

K Furukubo-Tokunaga 1, S Flister 1, W J Gehring 1
PMCID: PMC46928  PMID: 8101003

Abstract

The segmental identity in animal development is determined by a set of homeotic selector genes clustered in the invertebrate HOM or vertebrate Hox homeo box complexes. These genes encode proteins with very similar homeodomains and highly diverged N- and C-terminal sequences. The Antennapedia (Antp) homeodomain, for instance, differs at only five amino acid positions from that of Sex combs reduced (Scr) protein. Using a heat shock assay in which chimeric Antp-Scr proteins are expressed ectopically in Drosophila, we have shown that the functional specificity of the Antp protein is determined by the four specific amino acids located in the flexible N-terminal arm of the homeodomain. The three-dimensional structure of the Antp homeodomain-DNA complex shows that this N-terminal arm is located in the minor groove of the DNA, suggesting that the functional specificity is determined either by slight differences in DNA binding and/or by selective interactions with other transcription factor(s).

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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