Cell and Developmental Biology Commons^™

Functional Study Of The Suppressor Of Hairy-­Wing Insulator Protein In Drosophila Melanogaster, Shih-Jui Hsu

Doctoral Dissertations

Eukaryotic chromatin insulators play an essential role in regulating gene expression and modifying nuclear architecture by organizing the higher-order chromatin structure in response to cellular and developmental cues. The details on how insulators function in this capacity are not completely understood.

Five different types of insulators have been identified in Drosophila. Each functional insulator consists of an insulator DNA response element bound by an insulator protein, which recognizes specific DNA sequences. Each type of insulator functions individually as well as collaboratively. Except for the Su(Hw) insulator protein, the other insulator proteins are necessary for viability considering loss of Su(Hw) …