Newman A P, Inoue T, Wang M, Sternberg P W
Verna and Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
Curr Biol. 2000 Nov 30;10(23):1479-88. doi: 10.1016/s0960-9822(00)00827-7.
The development of a connection between the uterus and the vulva in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans requires specification of a uterine cell called the utse, and its attachment to the vulva and the epidermal seam cells. The uterine pi cells generate the utse and uv1 cells, which also connect the uterus to the vulva. The uterine anchor cell (AC) induces the vulva through LIN-3/epidermal growth factor (EGF) signaling, and the pi cells through LIN-12/Notch signaling. Here, we report that a gene required for seam cell maturation is also required for specification of the utse and for vulval differentiation, and thus helps to coordinate development of the vulval-uterine-seam cell connection.
We cloned the egl-29 gene, which is necessary for induction of uterine pi cells, and found it to be allelic to lin-29, which encodes a zinc finger transcription factor that is necessary for the terminal differentiation of epidermal seam cells. In the uterus, lin-29 functioned upstream of lin-12 in the induction of pi cells and was necessary to maintain expression in the AC of lag-2, which encodes a ligand for LIN-12.
The lin-29 gene controls gene expression in the epidermal seam cells, uterus and vulva, and may help to coordinate the terminal development of these three tissues by regulating the timing of late gene expression during organogenesis.
秀丽隐杆线虫子宫与阴门之间连接的发育需要一种名为utse的子宫细胞的特化，以及它与阴门和表皮缝细胞的附着。子宫pi细胞产生utse和uv1细胞，它们也将子宫与阴门连接起来。子宫锚定细胞（AC）通过LIN-3/表皮生长因子（EGF）信号传导诱导阴门形成，并通过LIN-12/Notch信号传导诱导pi细胞形成。在此，我们报告一种缝细胞成熟所需的基因对于utse的特化和阴门分化也是必需的，因此有助于协调阴门-子宫-缝细胞连接的发育。
我们克隆了诱导子宫pi细胞所必需的egl-29基因，发现它与lin-29等位，lin-29编码一种锌指转录因子，是表皮缝细胞终末分化所必需的。在子宫中，lin-29在pi细胞诱导过程中在lin-12的上游起作用，并且对于维持lag-2在AC中的表达是必需的，lag-2编码LIN-12的一种配体。
lin-29基因控制表皮缝细胞、子宫和阴门中的基因表达，并且可能通过在器官发生过程中调节晚期基因表达的时间来帮助协调这三个组织的终末发育。
