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Updated: Aug 18, 2026

Chromatin Immunoprecipitation Assay for Tissue-specific Genes using Early-stage Mouse Embryos
Published on: April 29, 2011
Transcriptional repression of an embryo-specific muscle gene
1Department of Anatomy, University of California, San Francisco 94143.
Abstract:
Skeletal muscle involves both the induction and repression of gene expression. Although activation and up-regulation of several contractile protein genes has been shown to occur via transcriptional mechanisms, the mechanisms by which contractile protein genes are repressed during muscle development remain unknown. However, a post-transcriptional mechanism has been implicated in the repression of thymidine kinase expression during muscle development. The chicken cardiac troponin T (cTNT) gene is expressed in early embryonic skeletal muscle but is abruptly repressed in late embryonic/fetal development. Using run-on transcription assays we demonstrate here that cTNT gene repression occurs at the level of transcription. Thus, transcriptional as well as post-transcriptional mechanisms operate both to activate and repress gene expression during skeletal muscle development.
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