Putative transcription factor. Required for leg joint formation, acting downstream of Notch to pattern the leg tarsal segments. Functions in the terminal pathway during embryogenesis, acting downstream of tll in the posterior of the embryo. Acts in a hierarchy downstream of drm and lin during foregut and hindgut patterning and morphogenesis. Involved in cell rearrangement during elongation of the embryonic hindgut. Regulates expression of hindgut patterning genes to establish the small intestine region of the embryonic hindgut. Required in the foregut for spatially localized gene expression and morphogenesis of the proventriculus. Expressed at the termini of the blastoderm embryo in three domains; strongly expressed at the posterior pole, relatively weakly expressed at the anterior pole and expressed in a broad transverse stripe just anterior to the presumptive cephalic furrow. Subsequent to the blastoderm stage, the expression pattern reflects the morphological rearrangements associated with gastrulation. Additionally, at early gastrulation, terminal expression is supplemented by weak expression in seven stripes. These primary stripes are rapidly supplemented by seven secondary stripes. Relatively uniformly expressed throughout the anlagen, primordia and epithelia of the embryonic foregut and hindgut. By stage 13, hindgut expression is greatly reduced but foregut expression remains high until stage 17. Segmentally expressed in the developing leg; present at a subset of segmental boundaries including all proximal joints (coxa/femur, femur/tibia, tibia/t1) and the distal t5/pretarsal boundary.