Worm Breeder's Gazette 10(1): 17

These abstracts should not be cited in bibliographies. Material contained herein should be treated as personal communication and should be cited as such only with the consent of the author.

Collagens, Cuticles and Chromosome V

K. Edwards

Figure 1

On the right side of the cluster on Chromosome V are several genes 
which, when mutated, cause defective cuticles.  These genes include 
vab-8, rol-4,  
cuticles are comprised predominantly of collagens, I wanted to 
determine whether any of these genes do in fact encode a collagen.  
Using radioactivity-labeled pcol-2, I probed restriction digests of 
overlapping cosmids contained within the myo-3 contig which had been 
mapped to this region.  (See maps below).  Two of these cosmids, 
C12A12 and ZC348, cross-hybridized to pcol-2 under low stringency 
conditions.  Interestingly, the HindIII fragment of ZC348 had the same 
molecular weight (3.5 Kbp) as did the HindIII fragment of pcol-1.  As 
a further test for identity, I probed double digests of both ZC348 and 
pcol-1 (HindIII/BamHI and Hind III/HinFI) with labeled pcol-1 under 
high stringency conditions.  Identical restriction fragments were seen 
for both clones.  The localization of col-1 to this region is a 
tremendous aid to our study of cuticle-defective mutants: col-1 has 
been sequenced (Kramer et al., 1982, Cell 30, 599) and its pattern of 
developmental expression has been determined (Cox & Hirsh, 1985, Mol.  
Cell.  Biol.  5, 363).  We are now using the col-1 gene as a probe to 
look for RFLPs in mutant DNAs.  To study the function of the col-1 
gene product we plan to isolate specific antibodies which can be used 
for biochemical and morphological analyses of wild-type and mutant 
cuticles.
[See figure 
1]

Figure 1