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Published August 21, 1992 | public
Journal Article

The germ cell-less gene product: A posteriorly localized component necessary for germ cell development in Drosophila

Abstract

The first cell fate specification process in the Drosophila embryo, formation of the germline precursors, requires posteriorly localized germ plasm. We have cloned a gene, germ cell-less (gcl), required for germline formation. Posterior localization of the gcl messenger RNA (mRNA) requires the function of those genes essential for the localization of both nanos RNA, which specifies the abdomen, and the germ cell determinants. Mothers with reduced gcl function give rise to sterile adult progeny that lack germ cells. In embryos with reduced maternal gcl product, the germ cell precursors fail to form properly. Consistent with this phenotype, gcl protein specifically associates with those nuclei that later become the nuclei of the germ cell precursors. These observations suggest that gcl functions in the germ cell specification pathway.

Additional Information

© 1992 by Cell Press. Received 9 March 1992, Revised 19 June 1992. We thank the members of the Jan lab who contributed to the P element enhancer trap screen, thereby providing the basis for the grand-childless screen that led to the discovery of the gcl transcript. We thank Trudi Schüpbach for the vasa^(PD23), tudor^(WC8), cappucino^(G7), and spire^(PJ56) alleles; Ruth Lehmann for staufen^(D3), oskar^(336), pumilio^(680), BicD^(7134), and BicD^(Elll48); Charlotte Wang and Ruth Lehmann for nanos^(L7) and Dali Ding and Howard Lipshitz for valois^(RB). We also would like to thank Gerald Rubin, in whose lab some of the sequencing was done. We are grateful to Gisela Weskamp for instruction on the use of the phospho-imager. We are indebted to Larry Ackerman for assistance with the figures and an introduction to confocal microscopy and to Sandy Barbel for assistance with some of the whole-mount in situ hybridization experiments. Finally, we would like to thank Vivian Siegel, Hannele Ruohola-Baker, Peter Kolodziej, Ira Clark, and Michael Blanar for critical reading of the manuscript. T. J. was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grant GM PHS2271 during a portion of this investigation and by Howard Hughes Medical Institute subsequently. B. H. was supported by both an NIH training grant from the University of California at San Francisco Neuroscience Department and by a Helen Hay Whitney fellowship during the course of this work. L. Y. J. and Y. N. J. are Howard Hughes Investigators. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

Additional details

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August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023