Worm Breeder's Gazette 15(5): 37 (February 1, 1999)
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.
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science!A, Okayama University, Okayama JAPAN 700-8530
C. elegans has mainly two muscle tissues; pharynx for feeding
and body wall for locomotion. Two of each myosin heavy chain genes are
expressed in pharynx and body wall respectively. One paramyosin gene,
unc-15 express in both. Two of each tropomyosin isoforms are expressed
in both from one tropomyosin gene, tmy-1/lev-11 by two promoters and
alternative splicing1. Okkema and Fire find that pharynx specific muscle
gene is controlled by ceh-222. It is interesting to know how muscle
protein gene express in body wall muscles3.
By miroinjection analysis on the promoter/lacZ fusion plasmid
genes we found hundred base pairs of 5!untranslated sequences is
essential for the troponin C gene, tnc-1/pat-10 expression in body wall
muscle4. We identified in this region a sequence similar to a enhancer
of hlh-1, a MyoD homologue of the worm3. Interestingly together with
this enhancer another enhancer was in the proximal promoter of tmy-1
which control body wall expression. Search of consensus sequences of Sp1
and MyoD recognition and enhancers in many muscle genes suggests that
there may be some transcription mechanism in body wall muscle.
Combination of many enhancers may control the specificity and quantity
of the gene product.
Our final goal is to find a regulatory sequences or factors
which is important for a gene expressing in body wall muscle.
1 Kagawa et al, 1995 J. Mol. Biol. 251, 603-613.
2 Okkema and Fire, 1994 Development, 120, 2175-2186.
3 Krause et al, 1994 Dev. Biol. 166,133-148.
4 Terami et al, submitted.