Development and Stem Cells Program, Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia.
G3 (Bethesda). 2023 Feb 9;13(2). doi: 10.1093/g3journal/jkac305.
DMD-9 is a Caenorhabditis elegans Doublesex/MAB-3 Domain transcription factor (TF) of unknown function. Single-cell transcriptomics has revealed that dmd-9 is highly expressed in specific head sensory neurons, with lower levels detected in non-neuronal tissues (uterine cells and sperm). Here, we characterized endogenous dmd-9 expression and function in hermaphrodites and males to identify potential sexually dimorphic roles. In addition, we dissected the trans- and cis-regulatory mechanisms that control DMD-9 expression in neurons. Our results show that of the 22 neuronal cell fate reporters we assessed in DMD-9-expressing neurons, only the neuropeptide-encoding flp-19 gene is cell-autonomously regulated by DMD-9. Further, we did not identify defects in behaviors mediated by DMD-9 expressing neurons in dmd-9 mutants. We found that dmd-9 expression in neurons is regulated by 4 neuronal fate regulatory TFs: ETS-5, EGL-13, CHE-1, and TTX-1. In conclusion, our study characterized the DMD-9 expression pattern and regulatory logic for its control. The lack of detectable phenotypes in dmd-9 mutant animals suggests that other proteins compensate for its loss.
DMD-9 是一种未知功能的秀丽隐杆线虫双性/MAb-3 结构域转录因子（TF）。单细胞转录组学研究表明，dmd-9 在特定的头部感觉神经元中高度表达，在非神经元组织（子宫细胞和精子）中检测到的水平较低。在这里，我们描述了雌雄同体和雄性中内源性 dmd-9 的表达和功能，以确定潜在的性别二态作用。此外，我们还剖析了控制神经元中 DMD-9 表达的转座和顺式调控机制。我们的研究结果表明，在我们评估的 22 个表达 DMD-9 的神经元细胞命运报告基因中，只有神经肽编码基因 flp-19 是由 DMD-9 自主调控的。此外，我们没有发现 dmd-9 突变体中由 DMD-9 表达神经元介导的行为缺陷。我们发现，神经元中的 dmd-9 表达受 4 种神经元命运调节 TF：ETS-5、EGL-13、CHE-1 和 TTX-1 的调节。总之，我们的研究描述了 DMD-9 的表达模式及其调控逻辑。dmd-9 突变体动物中未检测到明显的表型表明，其他蛋白质可能代偿了其缺失。
