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Patterning of the Caenorhabditis elegans head region by the Pax-6 family member vab-3

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Abstract

THE Pax-6 genes are important for eye development in both vertebrates and Drosophila. Mutations in the human PAX6 gene are found in patients with a variety of eye disorders, including aniridia and Peters′ anomaly1á¤-3, and mutations in the Drosophila Pax-6 homologue cause the eyeless phenotype4. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans vab-3 mutants display many defects in head-region development, including aberrant morphogenesis, trans-formation of hypodermal (epidermal-like) cell fates to those of posterior homologues, and abnormal specification of neurons. Here we show that vab-3 is a member of the paired-domain-containing Pax-6 gene family and is expressed in head-region cells. This C. elegans Pax-6 locus can also encode proteins lacking the paired domain5. Our results suggest that a primordial role of the Pax-6 gene family could have been to pattern part of the head region, and that Pax-6 genes subsequently evolved to be more specifically involved in eye development.

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  1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Biology, 68-425, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, USA

    Andrew D. Chisholm & H. Robert Horvitz

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  1. Andrew D. Chisholm
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  2. H. Robert Horvitz
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Chisholm, A., Horvitz, H. Patterning of the Caenorhabditis elegans head region by the Pax-6 family member vab-3. Nature 377, 52–55 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1038/377052a0

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