Worm Breeder's Gazette 8(3): 79
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.
Wild-type function of ced-3 is required for the initiation of essentially all programmed cell deaths during C. elegans development. In the absence of ced-3 function, cells that would normally die instead survive and differentiate. These results suggest that ced-3 might be involved in the determination of the fates of certain cells ( in this case, in the decision between death and survival). We hope to analyze the function of ced-3 at a molecular level. As a preliminary approach to the cloning of ced-3 we have mapped Bristol-Bergerac Tc1 polymorphisms in the region around ced-3 IV (see figure below). To identify Tc1 polymorphisms that map near ced-3 we constructed Bristol/Bergerac hybrid strains that carried a small portion of Bergerac DNA around the ced-3 locus and Bristol DNA elsewhere. These strains were then used in 3-factor crosses with marked Bristol strains to genetically map these polymorphisms. We found that a 4.9 kb EcoR1 Tc1-containing band in Bristol is tightly linked to ced-3 (p<0.1%). A 5.1 kb (EcoRI) Bristol-specific Tc1 band and an approximately 2.7 kb ( EcoRI) Bergerac-specific Tc1 band map between ced-3 and unc-26 (which are about 0.2% apart) and have not been separated from each other genetically. We have identified two cosmids containing the 4.9 kb Bristol-specific Tc1 band and plan to use these cosmids to begin walking in this region. [See Figure 1]