Mouse homolog of the Drosophila Pc-G gene esc exerts a dominant negative effect in Drosophila

The Polycomb group genes are involved in maintaining long term transcriptio nal repression of the homeotic genes in both Drosophila and mammals, The mo use eed locus encodes the highly conserved ortholog of the Drosophila ESC p rotein, To test the functional conservation between the two genes, eed was introduced into the fly to determine whether it could rescue the esc mutant phenotype, eed exerted a dominant negative effect on the leg transformatio n phenotype associated with the esc mutation, This result is interpreted in light of in vitro protein-protein binding data and in vivo polytene chromo some staining indicating the lack of significant interaction between fed an d fly E(Z), a molecular partner of ESC. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.