MOF, A PUTATIVE ACETYL TRANSFERASE GENE-RELATED TO THE TIP60 AND MOZ HUMAN GENES AND TO THE SAS GENES OF YEAST, IS REQUIRED FOR DOSAGE COMPENSATION IN DROSOPHILA
A. Hilfiker et al., MOF, A PUTATIVE ACETYL TRANSFERASE GENE-RELATED TO THE TIP60 AND MOZ HUMAN GENES AND TO THE SAS GENES OF YEAST, IS REQUIRED FOR DOSAGE COMPENSATION IN DROSOPHILA, EMBO journal, 16(8), 1997, pp. 2054-2060
Dosage compensation is a regulatory process that insures that males an
d females have equal amounts of X-chromosome gene products, In Drosoph
ila, this is achieved by a 2-fold enhancement of X-linked gene transcr
iption in males, relative to females, The enhancement of transcription
is mediated by the activity of a group of regulatory genes characteri
zed by the male-specific lethality of their loss-of-function alleles,
The products of these genes form a complex that is preferentially asso
ciated with numerous sites on the X chromosome in somatic cells of mal
es but not of females, Binding of the dosage compensation complex is c
orrelated with a significant increase in the presence of a specific hi
stone isoform, histone 4 acetylated at Lys16, on this chromosome, Expe
rimental results and sequence analysis suggest that an additional gene
, males-absent on the first (mof), encodes a putative acetyl transfera
se that plays a direct role in the specific histone acetylation associ
ated with dosage compensation, The predicted amino acid sequence of MO
F exhibits a significant level of similarity to several other proteins
, including the human HIV-1 Tat interactive protein Tip60, the human m
onocytic leukemia zinc finger protein MOZ and the yeast silencing prot
eins SAS3 and SAS2.