Thomas J H, Stern M J, Horvitz H R
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139.
Cell. 1990 Sep 21;62(6):1041-52. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(90)90382-o.
Egg laying by the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans requires the functioning of the vulva, the gonad, the egg-laying muscles, and the two HSN neurons, which innervate these muscles. By analyzing a newly isolated mutant (dig-1) that displaces the gonad, we discovered that cell interactions coordinate the spatial relationships among the different components of the egg-laying system. First, the gonad induces the formation of the vulva, and vulval induction by dorsal gonads strongly suggests that the inductive signal can act at a distance. Second, the gonad acts at a distance to regulate the migrations of the sex myoblasts that generate the egg-laying musculature. Third, the positions of the axonal branch and synapses of each HSN neuron are displaced correspondingly with the rest of the egg-laying system in dig-1 animals, which suggests that cell interactions also control aspects of HSN development.
秀丽隐杆线虫产卵需要阴门、性腺、产卵肌肉以及支配这些肌肉的两个HSN神经元发挥作用。通过分析一个新分离出的使性腺移位的突变体（dig-1），我们发现细胞间相互作用协调了产卵系统不同组成部分之间的空间关系。首先，性腺诱导阴门的形成，背侧性腺对阴门的诱导强烈表明诱导信号可以在一定距离外起作用。其次，性腺在一定距离外发挥作用，以调节产生产卵肌肉组织的性成肌细胞的迁移。第三，在dig-1动物中，每个HSN神经元的轴突分支和突触位置与产卵系统的其他部分相应移位，这表明细胞间相互作用也控制着HSN发育的各个方面。
