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Published January 2021 | Accepted Version
Journal Article Open

Zinc homeostasis and signaling in the roundworm C. elegans

Abstract

C. elegans is a powerful model for studies of zinc biology. Here we review recent discoveries and emphasize the advantages of this model organism. Methods for manipulating and measuring zinc levels have been developed in or adapted to the worm. The C. elegans genome encodes highly conserved zinc transporters, and their expression and function are beginning to be characterized. Homeostatic mechanisms have evolved to respond to high and low zinc conditions. The pathway for high zinc homeostasis has been recently elucidated based on the discovery of the master regulator of high zinc homeostasis, HIZR-1. A parallel pathway for low zinc homeostasis is beginning to emerge based on the discovery of the Low Zinc Activation promoter element. Zinc has been established to play a role in two cell fate determination events, and accumulating evidence suggests zinc may function as a second messenger signaling molecule during vulval cell development and sperm activation.

Additional Information

© 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V. Received 4 July 2020, Revised 11 September 2020, Accepted 25 September 2020, Available online 2 October 2020. The authors are grateful to the CGC, which is funded by NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (P40 OD010440), for providing strains that were integral to the reviewed literature. Funding from National Institutes of Health (grant number R01 GM068598 received by KK and F31 ES030622 received by BJE) supported this review. CRediT authorship contribution statement: Brian J. Earley: Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Visualization. Adelita D. Mendoza: Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Chieh-Hsiang Tan: Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Kerry Kornfeld: Writing - review & editing. The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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August 22, 2023
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