Worm Breeder's Gazette 12(1): 46 (September 1, 1991)
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.
Our laboratory has isolated 12 lethal alleles of the Caenorhabditis elegans gene rol-3 V, suggesting that the rol-3 gene performs an essential function. In an effort to locate genes whose products may interact with that of rol-3 ,and whose identity may shed light on the function of rol-3 itself, we have utilized the temperature sensitive homozygous lethal phenotype of rol-3 ( s1040 )in the generation of intergenic suppressors. These suppressors have been named srl for suppressor of roller lethal. The srl alleles are all recessive suppressors of homozygous rol-3 ( s1040 )lethal phenotype, have no obvious phenotype of their own, and fall into a minimum of two complementation groups. The srl-1 locus contains four alleles and has been linkage mapped to the dpy-17 region of LGIII. The srl-2 locus, also made up of four alleles, appears to be loosely linked to the dpy-10 region of LGII. Two srl alleles remain uncharacterized. The srl alleles fall into their respective allelic families by virtue of linkage mapping and their failure to complement. However, we have observed some instances of intergenic non-complementation among some srl alleles.
[See Figure 1]
This complex relationship displayed among the suppressors suggests that srl-1 and srl-2 gene products are functionally related, and that the genes may be members of the same gene family. We are currently constructing double homozygotes which may reveal a visible phenotype associated with the defects in these genes.
We have successfully suppressed the homozygous lethal phenotype of other rol-3 alleles with alleles of srl-2 .This result indicates that the gene product of srl-2 specifically interacts with the rol-3 gene product, and thus is not allele specific.
[See Figure 2]
