Gene Networks in Animal Development and Evolution
Organized by Eric Davidson and Michael Levine
February 15-16, 2008
Irvine, CA
Meeting Overview:
Gene regulatory networks represent the genomic program for the development of animal embryos, body parts, and cell types. They incorporate the interactions of intercellular signals with regulatory genes, and of regulatory genes with one another, via the transcription factors they encode. Gene regulatory networks indicate how the A’s, C’s, G’s, and T’s of the DNA genome determine which regulatory genes will be expressed in time and space during development. This Colloquium will have four sessions. The first is devoted to gene regulatory networks that control early embryonic development. There will be a particular focus on how the embryo transforms maternally inherited spatial cues into transcriptional domains of specific developmental fate. The second session concerns later developmental processes: organogenesis, terminal fate diversification and stem cell specification. The third session is about regulatory processes in complex multigenic systems, such as chromatin domains, and large clusters of related genes. Evolution of the body plan must occur by changes in the gene networks controlling development, and the final session of the Colloquium concerns this approach to understanding the generation of diversity and novelty during animal evolution.
Video Available
Session I: GENE NETWORKS IN EARLY EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT
Michael Levine, University of California, Berkeley
Introduction
Sea urchin endomesoderm gene network
Eric Davidson, California Institute of Technology
Drosophila dorsal-ventral network
Michael Levine, University of California, Berkeley
Ascidian mesoderm gene network
Kaoru Imai, University of Kyoto
Gene networks for somitogenesis
Oliver Pourquié, Stowers Institute for Medical Research
Hh gene network in mouse CNS
Andy McMahon, Harvard University
Session II: GENE NETWORKS IN LATER DEVELOPMENT
C. elegans vulva gene network
Paul Sternberg, California Institute of Technology
Mammalian heart gene network
Eric Olson, Southwestern Medical Center
T-cell specification network
Ellen Rothenberg, California Institute of Technology
C.elegans neuronal gene network
Oliver Hobert, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Session III: COMPLEX CIS-REGULATORY SYSTEMS
Long-range genomic control sequences
Gary Felsenfeld, National Institutes of Health
Multigene globin locus
Frank Grosveld, Erasmus University, Rotterdam
Regulatory organization of the hox gene complex
Francois Spitz, European Molecular Biology Laboratory
Muscle genomic code
Margaret Buckingham, Institut Pasteur
The A/P patterning system
Steve Small, New York University
Session IV: REGULATORY LOGIC AND EVOLUTION
Regulatory origins of neural crest
Marianne Bronner-Fraser, California Institute of Technology
Evolution of hox gene expression
Robert Krumlauf, Stowers Institute
Evolution of terminal patterning
Patricia Simpson, Cambridge University
Regulatory evolution of limb buds
Cliff Tabin, Harvard University
