# REGULATION OF THE DROSOPHILA SEGMENTATION GENE RUNT

> **NIH NIH R01** · STATE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK STONY BROOK · 1994 · $193,860

## Abstract

The establishment of the segmentation pattern in Drosophila embryos will
be investigated.  The powerful classical and molecular genetic techniques
available in this system make this an excellent model for investigating
the mechanism of body pattern formation in a multicellular organism.
These studies will provide insight into fundamental aspects of early
development and could impact on our understanding of the nature of birth
defects.

The proposal focuses on defining the role of the runt gene.  This is the
one of the genes required early in Drosophila development for normal
segmentation.  These segmentation genes have been grouped into three
classes.  Genetic experiments reveal a hierarchy of regulatory
interactions between these classes with the flow of information going from
the "gap" genes through the "pair-rule" genes and finally to the segment-
polarity" genes.  Runt is a pair-rule gene and has been termed a primary
pair-rule gene because of its key role in regulating all of the other
pair-rule genes.  As is the case for the others, runt shows a pair-rule
pattern of expression at the blastoderm stage, because of runt's primary
role it is important to understand how this pattern of expression is
generated.  We will identify cis-regulatory elements of the runt gene that
are critical for its proper regulation.  This will be accomplished using
germ-line transformation to assay DNA elements for their regulatory
effects.  Trans-acting factors involved in regulating runt will be
identified through genetic and biochemical experiments and the mechanism
of regulation will be investigated in vitro.

The other major aspect of this proposal addresses the function of the runt
protein itself and how it acts to regulate other genes.  The importance of
this issue is emphasized by the observation that runt is unlike all of the
other early-acting regulatory segmentation genes and appears to encode a
secreted glycoprotein instead of a nuclear transcription factor.  We will
determine the subcellular localization of the runt protein and investigate
the role post-translational modifications play in regulating its activity.
An in vitro assay for the function of the runt protein will be used to
investigate its mechanism of action.  Portions of the protein important
for function will be identified by sequencing a collection of mutant
alleles of runt and also by sequencing runt homologs isolated from other
species.  Finally, both biochemical and genetic methods will be used to
identify factors that interact with the runt protein and investigate their
roles in mediating runt's regulatory activity.  This multidisciplinary
approach should provide important insight into the role of runt in
segmentation and will contribute significantly to our understanding of
this basic biological process.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 2198536
- **Project number:** 5R01HD022448-08
- **Recipient organization:** STATE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK STONY BROOK
- **SAM.gov UEI:** M746VC6XMNH9
- **Principal Investigator:** John Peter Gergen
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1994
- **Award amount:** $193,860
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1986-12-01 → 1995-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2198536

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 2198536, REGULATION OF THE DROSOPHILA SEGMENTATION GENE RUNT (5R01HD022448-08). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/2198536. Licensed CC0.

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