Comparative promoter analysis and its application to the identification of candidate regulatory factors of cartilage-expressed genes

Chondrocyte gene regulation is important for the generation and maintenance of cartilage tissues. Analysis of the transcriptional regulation of cartilage-specific genes, encoding both collagenous and noncollagenous proteins, provides a useful strategy to identify transcription factors (TFs) that control chondrocyte specification and differentiation. Our work aims at the identification of candidate TFs important for cartilage maintenance and development through an in silico approach. In order to better define the transcriptional regulatory networks that affect chondrogenesis in zebrafish we propose a combination of comparative promoter analysis and transcription factor binding site analysis using a TRANSFAC position weight matrix search to identify cis-regulatory transcription factor binding motifs in a set of cartilage characteristic genes. With this methodology we have successfully identified several transcription factors known to be important for chondrogenesis thus validating our in silico approach