Dj. Van Meyel et al., Chip and apterous physically interact to form a functional complex during Drosophila development, MOL CELL, 4(2), 1999, pp. 259-265
LIM homeodomain (LIM-HD) proteins play key roles in a variety of developmen
tal processes throughout the animal kingdom. Here we show that the LIM-bind
ing protein Chip acts as a cofactor for the Drosophila LIM-HD family member
Apterous (Ap) in wing development. We define the domains of Chip required
for LIM-HD binding and for homodimerization and show that mutant proteins d
eleted for these domains act in a dominant-negative fashion to disrupt Ap f
unction. Our results support a model for multimeric complexes containing Ch
ip and Ap in transcriptional regulation. This model is confirmed by the act
ivity of a chimeric fusion between Chip and Ap that reconstitutes the compl
ex and rescues the ap mutant phenotype.