dictyNews Electronic Edition Volume 37, number 15 December 9, 2011 Please submit abstracts of your papers as soon as they have been accepted for publication by sending them to dicty@northwestern.edu or by using the form at http://dictybase.org/db/cgi-bin/dictyBase/abstract_submit. Back issues of dictyNews, the Dicty Reference database and other useful information is available at dictyBase - http://dictybase.org. Follow dictyBase on twitter: http://twitter.com/dictybase ========= Abstracts ========= Transcriptional Repression by a Bzip Protein Regulates Dictyostelium Prespore Differentiation Beatriz Nu–ez-Corcuera, Joanna L. Birch, Yoko Yamada and Jeffrey G. Williams+ College of Life Sciences, Welcome Trust Building, University of Dundee, Dow St., Dundee DD1 5EH UK PLoS One, in Press In response to the signaling polyketide DIF-1 DimB directly activates transcription of the ecmB gene in pstB cells; a subset of the prestalk cells that are the precursors of the basal disc. We show that the promoter of pspA, a prespore-specific gene, also contains a DimB binding site. Mutation of this site causes ectopic expression in the prestalk region and ChIP analysis shows that DIF-1 induces binding of DimB to the pspA promoter. DIF-1 represses pspA gene expression in a suspension cell assay but this repression is abrogated in a dimB null strain. These results suggest a coupled control mechanism, whereby the same DIF-DimB signaling pathway that directly activates ecmB gene expression directly represses pspA gene expression. Submitted by Jeff Williams [j.g.williams@dundee.ac.uk] ============================================================== [End dictyNews, volume 37, number 15]