van Meyel, D.J., O'Keefe, D.D., Jurata, L.W., Thor, S., Gill, G.N., Thomas, J.B. (1999). Chip and apterous physically interact to form a functional complex during Drosophila development.  Mol. Cell 4(2): 259--265.

FBrf0111533

Research paper

LIM homeodomain (LIM-HD) proteins play key roles in a variety of developmental processes throughout the animal kingdom. Here we show that the LIM-binding protein Chip acts as a cofactor for the Drosophila LIM-HD family member Apterous (Ap) in wing development. We define the domains of Chip required for LIM-HD binding and for homodimerization and show that mutant proteins deleted for these domains act in a dominant-negative fashion to disrupt Ap function. Our results support a model for multimeric complexes containing Chip and Ap in transcriptional regulation. This model is confirmed by the activity of a chimeric fusion between Chip and Ap that reconstitutes the complex and rescues the ap mutant phenotype.