The Caenorhabditis elegans PcG-like gene sop-2 regulates the temporal and sexual specificities of cell fates
The Caenorhabditis elegans PcG-like gene sop-2 regulates the temporal and sexual specificities of cell fates
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DOI：
10.1534/genetics.108.086678
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发表时间：
2008-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.3
通讯作者：
Zhang, Hong
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Cai, Qingchun;Sun, Yinyan;Zhang, Hong
在多细胞生物发育过程中，空间、时间和性别特异性线索如何被整合以指定不同的细胞命运在很大程度上是未知的。在这里，我们证明秀丽隐杆线虫pcg样基因sop-2除了指定它们的位置身份外，还决定了一排皮下缝细胞的时间和性别特异性。sop2的功能丧失导致在幼虫期过早表达成虫命运。Sop-2在异时通路中位于lin-29的上游，并与其他异时基因相互作用，以确定不同幼虫期细胞的时间面。我们发现，在sop-2突变体中，接缝细胞中含有alg -1的P体数量增加。此外，微rna介导的异慢性基因报告基因的抑制在sop-2突变体中增强。sop2基因的突变也会导致部分雌雄同体向男性的性转变。同种异体转化、异慢性缺陷和性转化可以同时发生在sop-2突变体中。总之，我们的研究表明，在秀丽隐杆线虫的发育过程中，sop-2整合了空间、时间和性线索。
How spatial, temporal, and sexual specific cues are integrated to specify distinct cell fates during multicellular organism development is largely unknown. Here we demonstrate that the Caenorhabditis elegans PcG-like gene sop-2 determines the temporal and sexual specificities of a row of hypodermal seam cells, in addition to specifying their positional identities. Loss-of-function of sop-2 causes premature expression of adult fates at larval stages. sop-2 acts upstream of lin-29 in the heterochronic pathway and genetically interacts with other heterochronic genes in specifying the temporal faces of warn cells at different larval stages. We show that the number of ALG-1-containing P bodies is increased in seam cells in sop-2 mutants. Furthermore, the microRNA-mediated repression of a heterochronic gene reporter is enhanced in sop-2 mutants. Mutations in sop-2 also cause partial hermaphrodite-to-male sexual transformations. The homeotic transformations, heterochronic defects, and sexual transformations can occur concomitantly in sop-2 mutants. In summary, our studies reveal that sop-2 integrates spatial, temporal, and sexual cues during C. elegans development.