%0 Journal Article
%T The Bic-C Family of Developmental Translational Regulators
%A Chiara Gamberi
%A Paul Lasko
%J International Journal of Genomics
%D 2012
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2012/141386
%X Regulation of mRNA translation is especially important during cellular and developmental processes. Many evolutionarily conserved proteins act in the context of multiprotein complexes and modulate protein translation both at the spatial and the temporal levels. Among these, Bicaudal C constitutes a family of RNA binding proteins whose founding member was first identified in Drosophila and contains orthologs in vertebrates. We discuss recent advances towards understanding the functions of these proteins in the context of the cellular and developmental biology of many model organisms and their connection to human disease. 1. Introduction Translational regulation of mRNA distributed asymmetrically in the early Drosophila embryo underlies pattern formation and germ cell specification. Furthermore, expression of certain proteins occurs only at definite stages of development. Exquisite, often partially redundant mechanisms of control ensure the coordination of the spatial and temporal expression of proteins with morphogenetic potential. These mechanisms have been reviewed recently [6]. Here we will discuss the case of one of such translational regulators, Bicaudal C (Bic-C), which is evolutionarily conserved, and for which there is recent accumulating functional evidence from both invertebrate and vertebrate model organisms suggesting that Bic-C is a fundamental regulator of cellular processes and an outstanding example of the fascinating complexity of the developmental mechanisms. 2. Materials and Methods The sequences shown in this paper are listed in Table 1, and they were recovered by running BLAST [7] with the Drosophila sequence and the NCBI sequence database, using the Homologene feature at the NCBI. The sequences for the different Drosophila species were retrieved from FlyBase [8]. Sequences were aligned with Clustal W [1, 2]. Table 1: Sequences used in this study. 3. Results and Discussion 3.1. Bic-C The Bic-C gene was originally identified during a Drosophila screen for maternal genes affecting embryonic polarity [9]. In fact, adult females bearing Bic-C mutations in one of their second chromosomes produce embryos exhibiting anterior-posterior defects of severity ranging from anterior defects, to the development of bicaudal embryos composed of as few as four segments arranged as two, mirror-image posterior ends, to embryos that fail to cellularize [3]. This pleiotropy indicates that Bic-C participates in (or influences) many different pathways. Early work demonstrated that Bic-C is required during oogenesis to establish anterior-posterior polarity
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijg/2012/141386/