Mello C C, Draper B W, Priess J R
Department of Basic Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington 98109.
Cell. 1994 Apr 8;77(1):95-106. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(94)90238-0.
The sister blastomeres ABp and ABa are equipotent at the beginning of the 4-cell stage in C. elegans embryos, but soon become committed to different fates. We show that the glp-1 gene, a homolog of the Notch gene of Drosophila, functions in two distinct cell-cell interactions that specify the ABp and ABa fates. These interactions both require maternal expression of glp-1. We show that a second maternal gene, apx-1, functions with glp-1 only in the specification of the ABp fate and that apx-1 can encode a protein homologous to the Delta protein of Drosophila. Our results suggest how interactions mediated by glp-1 and apx-1 contribute to the establishment of the dorsal-ventral axis in the early C. elegans embryo.
在秀丽隐杆线虫胚胎的4细胞阶段开始时，姐妹卵裂球ABp和ABa具有同等潜能，但很快就会分化为不同的命运。我们发现，glp-1基因是果蝇Notch基因的同源物，在两种不同的细胞间相互作用中发挥作用，决定了ABp和ABa的命运。这两种相互作用都需要glp-1的母源表达。我们还发现，另一个母源基因apx-1仅在ABp命运的决定过程中与glp-1共同起作用，并且apx-1可以编码一种与果蝇Delta蛋白同源的蛋白质。我们的研究结果揭示了glp-1和apx-1介导的相互作用是如何促进秀丽隐杆线虫早期胚胎背腹轴的建立的。
