GATA transcription factors are required for the differentiation of diverse cell types in several species. Recent evidence suggests that their biologic activities may be modulated through interaction with multitype zinc finger proteins, such as Friend of GATA-1 (FOG) and U-shaped (Ush). In cell culture, FOG cooperates with the hematopoietic transcription factor GATA-1 to promote erythroid and megakaryocytic differentiation. We show here that mice lacking FOG die during mid-embryonic development with severe anemia. FOG −/− erythroid cells display a marked, but partial, blockage of maturation, reminiscent of GATA-1 − erythroid precursors. In contrast to GATA-1 deficiency, however, megakaryocytes fail to develop in the absence of FOG. Although the FOG −/− erythroid phenotype supports the proposed role of FOG as a GATA-1 cofactor in vivo, the latter finding points to a pivotal, GATA-1-independent requirement for FOG in megakaryocyte development from the bipotential erythroid/megakaryocytic progenitor. We speculate that FOG and other FOG-like proteins serve as complex cofactors that act through both GATA-dependent and GATA-independent mechanisms.

By screening for mutations that suppress the vulval defects caused by a constitutively active let-60 ras gene, we identified six loss-of-function alleles of ksr-1, a novel C. elegans gene. Our genetic analysis showed ksr-1 positively mediates Ras signaling and functions downstream of or in parallel to let-60. In the absence of ksr-1 function, normal Ras signaling is impaired only slightly, suggesting ksr-1 may act to modulate, or in a branch that diverges from, the main signaling pathway. The predicted KSR-1 protein has a protein kinase domain and is most similar to a recently identified Drosophila protein involved in Ras signaling. We propose that the function of ksr-1 is evolutionarily conserved.

Selection for resistance to allyl alcohol in respiration-incompetent Saccharomyces cerevisiae produces a high proportion of mutants that can be localized within the ADH2 structural gene and that still, because of the type of selection employed, retain enzyme activity. We show here that a similar type of selection produces a similarly high proportion of mutants resistant to the competitive inhibitor pyrazole. The first four mutants examined, picked at random from a collection of spontaneous pyrazole-resistant mutants, show altered--usually increased--KM values for ethanol and NAD+, and markedly increased K1 values for pyrazole, compared with the wild type. When these kinetic measures and their electrophoretic mobilities were compared, all the mutants could be clearly distinguished from each other as well as from wild type. Genetic analysis shows these mutants to be close to and probably resident in the structural gene. For a variety of reasons, these mutants are even more favorable subjects for population genetic analysis and the dissection of molecular microevolution than are allyl alcohol-resistant mutants.