Structural Requirements for the Tissue-Specific and Tissue-General Functions of the Caenorhabditis elegans Epidermal Growth Factor LIN-3
Abstract
Caenorhabditis elegans lin-3 encodes a homolog of the epidermal growth factor (EGF) family of growth factors. LIN-3 is the inductive signal for hermaphrodite vulval differentiation, and it is required for animal viability, hermaphrodite fertility, and the specification of anterior cell fates in the male B cell lineage. We describe the cloning of a lin-3 homolog from C. briggsae, sequence comparison of C. elegans lin-3 with C. briggsae lin-3, and the determination of molecular lesions in alleles of C. elegans lin-3, including three new alleles. We also analyzed the severity of phenotypes caused by the new and existing alleles of lin-3. Correlation of mutant phenotypes and their molecular lesions, as well as sequence comparison between two species, reveal that the EGF motif and the N-terminal portion of the cytoplasmic domain are important for the functions of LIN-3 in all tissues, while the C-terminal portion of the cytoplasmic domain is involved in the tissue-specific functions of lin-3. We discuss how the structure of lin-3 contributes to its functions in multiple developmental processes.
Additional Information
© 1999 by the Genetics Society of America. Manuscript received August 31, 1998; Accepted for publication July 14, 1999. We thank the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center for providing some of the strains, and T. Clandinin for commenting on the manuscript. This work was supported by a grant from U.S. Public Health Service (HD23690) to P.W.S., who is an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.Attached Files
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC1460807
- Eprint ID
- 95487
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20190514-112200944
- NIH
- HD23690
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
- Created
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2019-05-14Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2019-10-03Created from EPrint's last_modified field