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Reverse Engineering of Metazoan Gene Regulatory Networks
Bart Deplancke
Institute of Bioengineering, School of Life Sciences, EPFL, Switzerland
Gene regulatory networks play a vital role in metazoan development and
function. The protein-DNA interactions (PDIs) that form the basis of these
networks have however been poorly characterized. The recent availability of the
human genome sequence, as well as genomic resources for other organisms,
has permitted the development of novel methodologies that probe regulatory
networks at a systems level rather than at the individual gene level. Most of these
methods are transcription factor (TF)-centered, in that they use the TF as the
experimental starting point, and inquire what the respective binding site or target
genes are. We have developed a gene-centered high-throughput PDI detection
method as a powerful alternative to TF-centered approaches. The latter method
has so-far only been applied in C. elegans, but efforts are underway to adapt the
technology for use in Drosophila and mammalian organisms as welI. The ultimate
goal is to achieve a quantitative understanding of the gene regulatory networks
that control metazoan differential gene expression through analysis of their
composition, structure, function, and dynamic properties.