Developmental Gene Expression In C elegans

我们的兴趣是基因调控和发育调控。在过去的一年里，我们的重点一直是了解中胚层细胞命运规范和雄性生殖使用正向和反向遗传学在线虫秀丽隐杆线虫。产生体壁肌肉的前系也产生其他非肌肉细胞和胚细胞，这些细胞经历胚胎后发育的命运。在梳理体壁肌肉分化和分化的必要和充分的转录因子时，我们发现了一些非肌肉细胞命运也需要的转录因子。使用各种工具和遗传方法，我们探索了各种突变和/或rnai介导的功能减少方法，以单细胞分辨率整理每个因素的损失如何单独或联合影响这些发育事件。

Our interests are in gene regulation and developmental regulation. Over this past year, our focus has been on understanding mesodermal cell fate specification and male fertility using forward and reverse genetics in the nematode C. elegans. Anterior lineages that give rise to body wall muscle also generate sever other non-muscle cells and blast cells that undergo post-embryonic developmental fates. In teasing out the transcription factors that are both necessary and sufficient for body wall muscle specification and differentiation, we have uncovered a number of transcription factor also required for several non-muscle cell fates. Using a variety of tools and genetic approaches, we have explored various mutant and/or RNAi-mediated reduction-in-function approaches to sort out as single cell resolution how the loss of each factor, ether alone or in combination, impacts these developmental events. In addition, we continued our long-term collaboration with the Hanover Lab (NIH) to explore further the role of the post-translational modification, O-GlcNAcylation, on development. More specifically, how loss of O-GlcNAc cycling impacts male fertility. Interestingly, the catalytic function of the O-GlcNAc transferase, encoded by the gene ogt-1, is not required for restoring fertility in loss-of-function ogt-1 mutants and mutant rescue can be achieved with expression of transgenes that is limited to the hypodermic. This suggests OGT-1 serves a non-catalytic function in the hypodermis impacting male fertility and mating behavior.