Worm Breeder's Gazette 10(3): 54
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.
The Sequence of a 4.5kb genomic clone that covers nine of ten rearrangements in unc-31 alleles is almost complete. A necessarily tentative interpretation of the data is that the sequence includes the 3' end of the unc-31 gene. A good worm consensus splice acceptor sequence is followed by a 495bp ORF, with a polyadenlyation signal 280bp further along. No significant homologies were detected when the entire 4.5kb sequence was translated in all 6 frames and compared to the PIR protein sequence database using the Lipman and Pearson program 'fasta'. There is a 17bp inverted repeat (GATGCGCGGAACCCAAA) separated by a 90bp spacer at one end of the sequence. Given that unc-31 is apparently a 'hot target' in mutator strains and that most rearrangements in mutant alleles of the gene, including five deletions, map within the sequence, apparently at one end of the gene, the repeat may have significance. MORE UNC-30 TRANSFORMATION I have confirmed that the lambda-phage CB#RH12 and CB#RH17 rescue unc-30(e191). In addition, a third clone CB#RH11 rescues, but it seems not completely. Transformed animals move much better than the mutant, but not as well as wild-type. Very little transmission of the rescued phenotype to subsequent generations has been seen, so it is possible that the clone contains all of the unc-30 gene, but is less apt to form semi-stable extra-chromosomal arrays. Two pUC subclones spanning the 8kb overlap region have so far failed to rescue. I plan to try cotransformation experiments with unc-31 rescuing DNA to test these, and to begin sequencing.