Emmons S W
Department of Molecular Genetics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461.
Bioessays. 1992 May;14(5):309-16. doi: 10.1002/bies.950140504.
The C. elegans male tail is being studied as a model to understand how genes specify the form of multicellular animals. Morphogenesis of the specialized male copulatory organ takes place in the last larval stages during male development. Genetic analysis is facilitated because the structure is not necessary for male viability or for strain propagation. Analysis of developmental mutants, isolated in several functional and morphological screens, has begun to reveal how fates of cells are determined in the cell lineages, and how the specification of cell fates affects the morphology of the structure. Cytological studies in wild type and in mutants have been used to study the mechanism of pattern formation in the tail peripheral nervous system. The ultimate goal is to define the entire pathway leading to the male copulatory organ.
秀丽隐杆线虫的雄性尾部正作为一个模型进行研究，以了解基因如何决定多细胞动物的形态。特化的雄性交配器官的形态发生在雄性发育的最后幼虫阶段。由于该结构对于雄性的生存能力或品系繁殖并非必需，因此便于进行遗传分析。在多个功能和形态学筛选中分离出的发育突变体分析，已开始揭示细胞谱系中细胞命运是如何确定的，以及细胞命运的指定如何影响该结构的形态。在野生型和突变体中进行的细胞学研究已用于研究尾部周围神经系统中模式形成的机制。最终目标是确定通向雄性交配器官的整个途径。
