In: Biology
If you made mice homozygous for loss-of-function mutations in Crx would you expect the level of GADD transcription to increase or decrease (relative to wildtype/normal)? Would GADD be the only gene affected by the loss-of-function Crx mutation or would the transcriptional levels of other genes change as well? Explain your answer.
CRX gene codes for cone rod homeobox protein found in eye especially in light sensitive tissues like back of retina. It works as transcriptional factor activating genes responsible for normal develoment of photoreceptor. Loss of function mutations associate with a wide range of clinical abnormalities that impairs normal vision including congenital retinal dystrophy and progressive diseases such as cone-rod dystrophy or retinitis pigmentosa.
Mutation in CRX gene down regulate one of target called GADD gene, GADD stands for growth arrest and DNA damage protein linked to retinitis pigmentosa, the disease associated with loss of normal rod/cone devolopment. Here in the present scenario, loss of function of CRX resulted in dicrease levels of GADD protein expression and hence, unusual expression of many non retinal genes n retinal cells and impair wild type vision.
The loss of function of CRX effects and dicreases it's downstream targets including the opsins and the gene for interphotoreceptor retinoid binding protein etc.