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Development 130 (19): 4553-4566
Modulation of EGF receptor-mediated vulva development by the heterotrimeric G-protein G q and excitable cells in C. elegans
Nadeem Moghal1,*, ,
L. Rene Garcia2,*,,
Liakot A. Khan3, ,
Kouichi Iwasaki3, and
Paul W. Sternberg1
1 Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Division of Biology, California Institute
of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
2 Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, 3258 TAMU, College Station,
TX 77843, USA
3 Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology, Neuroscience Research Institute AIST,
Tsukuba, 305-8566, Japan
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Fig. 1. Expression patterns of the regulatory elements contained in the
aex-3 and myo-3 transgenic constructs. Left-hand images are
Nomarski, and right-hand images are fluorescence. Scale bars: 20 µm.
(A,B,G,H) Body-wall muscle. (C,D,I,J) Ventral cord neurons. (E,F,K,L) Vulval
precursor cells. (A-F) Neuronal-specific expression of yfp from the
aex-3 promoter in the presence of the last intron from
egl-30. Animal is an early L3 stage hermaphrodite containing the
pha-1(e2123ts) mutation, and rescued by the extrachromosomal array
syEx570 [pha-1, aex-3::yfp::egl-30]. (B,F) Background fluorescence is
from neuronally expressed YFP in other focal planes. (G-L) Muscle-specific
expression of the egl-19 genomic coding region fused to gfp
from the myo-3 promoter. Animal is an early L3 stage hermaphrodite
containing the egl-19(n582) mutation and the extrachromosomal array
syEx476 [myo-3::egl-19::gfp]. (J,L) Background fluorescence is from
body-wall muscle-expressing GFP in other focal planes. AC, anchor cell.
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Fig. 2. Expression pattern of the unc-18 promoter. Left-hand images are
Nomarski, and right-hand images are fluorescence. Scale bars: 20 µm.
Animals are pha-1(e2123ts) hermaphrodites at the early L3 stage,
rescued by the extrachromosomal array syEx594 [pha-1,
unc-18::yfp::egl-30]. (A,B) Head. (C,D) Tail. (E,F) Ventral cord. (G,H)
Vulval precursor cells. (I,J) Body-wall muscle. Background fluorescence in H
and J is from neuronal expression of the reporter. AC, anchor cell.
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Fig. 3. Growth in a liquid environment promotes vulval induction. Scale bars: 20
µm. Animals are L4 stage hermaphrodites. (A) A wild-type animal displaying
normal vulval induction that developed on standard NG plates. (B) A
let-23(sy1) mutant animal displaying a vulvaless phenotype that
developed on standard NG plates. (C) A let-23(sy1) mutant animal
displaying normal vulval induction that developed in a liquid M9
environment.
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Fig. 4. Depiction of vulval induction in the context of the whole animal. (A) A
schematic transverse section through a developing hermaphrodite. The dorsal
side of the worm is up. Dorsal and ventral nerve cord, blue circles labeled N;
body-wall muscles in the four lateral quadrants, red cells labeled Mu; gonadal
tissue, inverted U-shaped tissue; anchor cell, green circle labeled AC.
Representative vulval precursor cell (grey cell labeled VPC). (B) One model
for EGL-30 modulation of LET-23-mediated vulva development. Neurons (blue, N)
are directly stimulated by environmental conditions and transduce a signal to
muscle (red, Mu) via EGL-30, and possibly the UNC-13 and UNC-64 synaptic
transmission proteins. Excitation of muscle by neuronally expressed (and
possibly also by muscle-expressed) EGL-30 leads to activation of downstream
components that include EGL-19 voltage-gated calcium channels. The muscle
cells provide a modulatory signal that may upregulate BAR-1 activity in P6.p
(grey cell, VPC) to cooperate with LIN-3 from the anchor cell (green, AC) to
facilitate vulval induction. Hyp, hypodermis; Int, intestine.
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