Worm Breeder's Gazette 14(2): 86 (February 1, 1996)

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.

HERE IS HIR

Christine Scamps¹, Danielle Thierry-Mieg², Marc Lipinski¹

The Hir protein family comprises HIR1 and HIR2, two proteins identified in
yeast as histone transcriptional regulators, and the product of the HIRA
gene cloned from the chromosome 22 region critical for the DiGeorge
syndrome, a human haploinsufficiency disease affecting derivatives of the
third and fourth pharyngeal pouches (Lamour et al., Hum. Mol. Genet. 1995,
5: 731-739).  These WD repeat-containing proteins appear to play a role in
nuclear architecture as part of multiprotein complexes.  We have
identified a family member through screening of the C. elegans database.
The corresponding gene, K10D2.1, maps to chromosome III, between the
cloned genes ced-4 and clk-1.  Using primers from the 3' end of the yk22d7
cDNA (kindly provided by Yuji Kohara), we have shown by Southern blotting
that a unique gene in C. elegans hybridizes to our .2 kb probe and have
designed a PCR assay to test for the presence of K10D2.1 in the
deficiencies of the area, kindly provided by David Baillie.  To our
surprise, the gene is present in the three deficiencies sDfl30, sDfl21 and
sDf134, indicating that it maps left of their left limits.  We propose
below a revised map in which all the genetic and molecular data is
consistently taken into account.  To identify a strain with a mutation in
the C. elegans HIR gene, the K10D2 cosmid will be tested for its ability
to rescue selected mutants. 

(A figure accompanies the original article.)