THE HARDWIRING OF DEVELOPMENT - ORGANIZATION AND FUNCTION OF GENOMIC REGULATORY SYSTEMS

The gene regulatory apparatus that directs development is encoded in t he DNA, in the form of organized arrays of transcription factor target sites, Genes are regulated by interactions with multiple transcriptio n factors and the target sites for the transcription factors required for the control of each gene constitute its cis-regulatory system. The se systems are remarkably complex, Their hardwired internal organizati on enables them to behave as genomic information processing systems, D evelopmental gene regulatory networks consist of the cis-regulatory sy stems of all the relevant genes and the regulatory linkages amongst th em, Though there is yet little explicit information, some general prop erties of genomic regulatory networks have become apparent, The key to understanding how genomic regulatory networks are organized, and how they work, lies in experimental analysis of cis-regulatory systems at all levels of the regulatory network.