Worm Breeder's Gazette 7(1): 56
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.
We have recently begun a search for genomic DNA sequences that are transcriptionally active only during spermatogenesis by the following procedure: We have screened triplicate copies of a C. elegans clone bank (graciously provided by Scott Emmons) with three separate probes: 1) [32P]cDNA of Poly A RNA from synchronous L2 worms; 2) [32P]cDNA of Poly A RNA from 70% adult males; and 3) [32P]cDNA of Poly A RNA from gravid hermaphrodites. Plaques were screened and those plaques showing positive hybridization to only the male cDNA probe were picked for further analysis. So far of 1600 phage screened 200 were positive but only 2 of these showed specific hybridization only to the male probe. They have been picked as candidates for being spermatogenesis specific. Interestingly, three plaques were found to be hermaphrodite specific, hybridizing only to the gravid hermaphrodite probe. Our plan is to analyze these spermatogenesis specific sequences by determining their products and how they are regulated.