QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplemental Research Data Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Peden, E. Articles by Xue, D. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Peden, E. Articles by Xue, D. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Control of sex-specific apoptosis in C. elegans by the BarH homeodomain protein CEH-30 and the transcriptional repressor UNC-37/Groucho

¹ Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA; ² Department of Physiology, Tokyo Women’s Medical University, School of Medicine and CREST, Japan Science and Technology, Tokyo, 162-8666, Japan

Apoptosis is essential for proper development and tissue homeostasis in metazoans. It plays a critical role in generating sexual dimorphism by eliminating structures that are not needed in a specific sex. The molecular mechanisms that regulate sexually dimorphic apoptosis are poorly understood. Here we report the identification of the ceh-30 gene as a key regulator of sex-specific apoptosis in Caenorhabditis elegans. Loss-of-function mutations in ceh-30 cause the ectopic death of male-specific CEM neurons. ceh-30 encodes a BarH homeodomain protein that acts downstream from the terminal sex determination gene tra-1, but upstream of, or in parallel to, the cell-death-initiating gene egl-1 to protect CEM neurons from undergoing apoptosis in males. The second intron of the ceh-30 gene contains two adjacent cis-elements that are binding sites for TRA-1A and a POU-type homeodomain protein UNC-86 and acts as a sensor to regulate proper specification of the CEM cell fate. Surprisingly, the N terminus of CEH-30 but not its homeodomain is critical for CEH-30’s cell death inhibitory activity in CEMs and contains a conserved eh1/FIL domain that is important for the recruitment of the general transcriptional repressor UNC-37/Groucho. Our study suggests that ceh-30 defines a critical checkpoint that integrates the sex determination signal TRA-1 and the cell fate determination and survival signal UNC-86 to control the sex-specific activation of the cell death program in CEMs through the general transcription repressor UNC-37.

[Keywords: C. elegans; apoptosis; sex-specific; unc-37/Groucho; ceh-30; transcriptional regulation]]

Received August 22, 2007; revised version accepted October 12, 2007.

⁴ Corresponding author.

E-MAIL ding.xue{at}colorado.edu; FAX (303) 492-7744.

Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.

Article is online at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.1607807

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. A. Mason, J. S. Rabinowitz, and D. S. Portman dmd-3, a doublesex-related gene regulated by tra-1, governs sex-specific morphogenesis in C. elegans Development, July 15, 2008; 135(14): 2373 - 2382. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]