The Development of Reporter System for the Investigation of Molecular Mechanisms of Ecdysone Response

To study the mechanisms of transcriptional regulation, a convenient experimental approach is to use the artificial chimeric constructs carrying the regulatory elements of interest. In the present work, we describe the creation and characterization of a novel genetic construct that makes it possible to study the transcriptional regulation of the early–late gene of the ecdysone cascade. Using the data of genome-wide experiments, we have isolated the main regulatory region of the hr4 gene, which was successfully used to create a chimeric reporter construct expressing a fluorescent protein upon the treatment with the ecdysone hormone. This reporter system can be used to study the mechanisms of the ecdysone response, both in cell culture and in tissues, at various stages of the Drosophila development.