Developmental control of C. elegans germline syncytial organization and function

细胞质分裂是细胞分裂的最后一步，包括一个母细胞物理分离成两个单独的子细胞。因此，它是高度调控的，它的失败会对生物体的发育和组织稳态产生巨大的影响。有趣的是，某些细胞类型，如人类肝细胞，经历了受控的细胞分裂失败，形成了所谓的合胞体，其中多个细胞核保持彼此连接并在组织中一起发挥作用。研究细胞如何控制这种细胞质分裂失败可能为破译正常细胞质分裂过程中所需的关键调控步骤提供有用的信息，也有助于更好地理解动物发育过程中合胞组织和器官的形成。

Cytokinesis is the final step of cell division and consists in the physical separation of a mother cell into two individual daughter cells. As such, it is highly regulated and its failure can have dramatic consequences on an organism's development and tissue homeostasis. Interestingly, certain cell types, such as human liver cells, undergo controlled cytokinesis failures to form so-called syncytia, in which multiple nuclei remain connected to one another and function together in a tissue. Studying how cells control such cytokinesis failures may provide useful information to decipher the critically regulated steps that are required during normal cytokinesis, but also to better understand how syncytial tissues and organs are formed during animal development. I propose to study this problem using a well-characterized model organism, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. One of the tissues of C. elegans, the germline, is organized as a syncytium, and we have developed novel methods to characterize how this syncytial organization is regulated during development of the animal. Using our methods, we have identified the protein ANI-2 as the crucial regulator of syncytial organization and function during C, elegans development. The goal of this proposal is to use the powerful molecular and genetic tools available in C. elegans to determine how ANI-2 promotes syncytium formation. As proteins that are similar to ANI-2 are also found in other multicellular organisms, this work will serve as foundation to decipher how syncytial tissues form during animal development.