RESEARCH ARTICLE Lin28a/let-7 pathway modulates the Hox code via Polycomb regulation during axial patterning in vertebrates Tempei Sato1,2,3, Kensuke Kataoka1,3, Yoshiaki Ito1,4, Shigetoshi Yokoyama2,5, Masafumi Inui2,6, Masaki Mori1,7, Satoru Takahashi8, Keiichi Akita9, Shuji Takada2, Hiroe Ueno-Kudoh2,10, Hiroshi Asahara1,2,11,12* 1Department of Systems BioMedicine, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan; 2Department of Systems BioMedicine, National Research Institute for Child Health and Development, Tokyo, Japan; 3Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan; 4Research Core, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan; 5Laboratory of Metabolism, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, United States; 6Laboratory of Animal Regeneration Systemology, Meiji University, Kanagawa, Japan; 7Department of Medical Chemistry, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga, Japan; 8Department of Anatomy and Embryology, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan; 9Department of Clinical Anatomy, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan; 10Reproduction Center, Yokohama City University, Yokohama, Japan; 11AMED- CREST, Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), Tokyo, Japan; 12Department of Molecular Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, United States Abstract The body plan along the anteroposterior axis and regional identities are specified by *For correspondence: the spatiotemporal expression of Hox genes. Multistep controls are required for their unique
[email protected] expression patterns; however, the molecular mechanisms behind the tight control of Hox genes are not fully understood. In this study, we demonstrated that the Lin28a/let-7 pathway is critical for Competing interests: The axial elongation.