Summary
The product of the maternally acting gene zyg-11 is required for early embryogenesis of Caenorhabditis elegans. One-cell embryos that lack a functional zyg-11 gene product exhibit an arrest of meiosis at metaphase II, a delay in the formation of pronuclei, unusually vigorous movements of cytoplasm, the formation of multiple pronuclei, incorrect segregation of P granules, and incorrect placement of the first cleavage furrow. We have isolated and sequenced a molecular clone of zyg-11, and shown that microinjection of the cloned DNA can rescue zyg-11 mutations. A transcriptional analysis shows that transcription of the gene is not limited to the female germ-line, despite the strict maternal-effect phenotype of zyg-11 mutations.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bandziulis RJ, Swanson MS, Dreyfuss G (1989) RNA-binding proteins as developmental regulators. Genes Dev 3:431–437
Barton MK, Schedl TB, Kimble J (1987) Gain-of-function mutations of fem-3, a sex-determination gene in Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics 115:107–119
Booher R, Beach D (1989) Involvement of a type 1 protein phosphatase encoded by bws1 + in fission yeast mitotic control. Cell 57:1009
Brenner S (1974) The genetics of Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics 77:71–94
Collins J, Saari B, Anderson P (1987) Activation of a transposable element in the germ line but not the soma of Caenorhabditis elegans. Nature 328:726–728
Collins J, Forbes E, Anderson P (1989) The Tc3 family of transposable genetic elements in Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics 121:47–55
Coulson A, Sulston J, Brenner S, Karn J (1986) Toward a physical map of the genome of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 83:7821–7825
Coulson A, Waterston R, Kiff J, Sulston J, Kohara Y (1988) Genome linking with yeast artificial chromosomes. Nature 335:184–186
Davidson E (1988) Gene activity in early development. Academic Press, New York
DeLotto R, Spierer P (1986) A gene required for the specification of dorsal-ventral pattern in Drosophila appears to encode a serine protease. Nature 323:688–692
Devault A, Nault C, Zollinger M, Fournie-Zaluski M-C, Roques BP, Crine P, Boileau G (1988) Expression of neutral endopeptidase (enkephalinase) in heterologous COS-1 cells. J Biol Chem 263:4033–4040
Devereux J, Haeberli P, Smithies O (1984) A comprehensive set of sequence analysis programs for the VAX. Nucleic Acids Res 12:387–395
Doonan JH, Morris NR (1989) The bimG gene of Aspergillus nidulans, required for completion of anaphase, encodes a homolog of mammalian phosphoprotein phosphatase 1. Cell 57:987–996
Emmons SW (1988) The genome. In: Wood WB (ed) The nematode Caenorhabdits elegans. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, pp 47–79
Engelman DM, Steitz TA, Goldman A (1986) Identifying nonpolar transbilayer helices in amino acid sequences of membrane proteins. Annu Rev Biophys Chem 15:321–353
Fire A (1986) Integrative transformation of Caenorhabdits elegans. EMBO J 5:2673–2680
Geisow MJ, Fritsche U, Hexham JM, Dash B, Johnson T (1986) A consensus amino-acid sequence repeat in Torpedo and mammalian Ca2−-dependent membrane-binding proteins. Nature 320:636–638
Hanks SK, Quinn AM, Hunter T (1988) The protein kinase family: Conserved features and deduced phylogeny of the catalytic domains. Science 241:42–52
Henikoff S (1984) Unidirectional digestion with exonclease III creates targeted breakpoints for DNA sequencing. Gene 28:351–359
Herman RK (1978) Crossover suppressors and balanced lethals in Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics 88:49–65
Hirsh D, Vanderslice R (1976) Temperature-sensitive developmental mutants of Caenorhabditis elegans. Dev Biol 76:160–174
Hodgkin J, Edgley M, Riddle DL, Albertson DG (1988) Appendix 4: Genetics. In: Wood WB (ed) The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, pp 491–584
Hunter T (1987) A thousand and one protein kinases. Cell 50:823–829
Jefferson RA, Klass M, Wolf N, Hirsh D (1987) Expression of chimeric genes in Caenorhabditis elegans. J Mol Biol 193:41–46
Kemphues KJ, Wolf N, Wood WB, Hirsh D (1986) Two loci required for cytoplasmic organization in early embryos of Caenorhabditis elegans. Dev Biol 113:449–460
Kemphues KJ, Kusch M, Wolf N (1988) Maternal-effect lethal mutations on linkage group II of Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics 120:977–986
Kozak M (1986) Point mutations define a sequence flanking the AUG initiator codon that modulates translation by eucaryotic ribosomes. Cell 44:283–292
Kyte J, Doolittle RF (1982) A simple method for displaying the hydrothatic character of a protein. J Mol Biol 157:105–132
Lewis SA, Wang D, Cowan NJ (1988) Microtubule-associated protein MAP2 shares a microtubule binding motif with Tau protein. Science 242:936–939
Maniatis T, Fritsch EF, Sambrook J (1982) Molecular cloning: A laboratory manual. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
Ohkura H, Kinoshita N, Miyatani S, Toda T, Yanagida M (1989) The fission yeast dis2 + gene required for chromosome disjoining encodes one of two putative type 1 protein phosphatases. Cell 57:997–1007
Proudfoot N, Brownlee G (1976) 3′ Non-coding region sequences in eukaryotic messenger RNA. Nature 263:211–213
Query CC, Bentley RC, Keene JD (1989) A common RNA recognition motif identified within a defined U1 RNA binding domain of the 70K U1 snRNP protein. Cell 57:89–101
Sanger F, Nicklen S, Coulson A (1977) DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 74:5463–5467
Shenoy S, Choi J-K, Bagrodia S, Copeland TD, Maller JL, Shalloway D (1989) Purified maturation promoting factor phosphorylates pp60c-src at the sites phosphorylated during fibroblast mitosis. Cell 57:763–774
Spieth J, Denison K, Zucker E, Blumenthal T (1985) The nucleotide sequence of a nematode vitellogenin gene. Nucleic Acids Res 13:7129–7138
Stinchcomb DT, Shaw JE, Carr SH, Hirsh D (1985) Extrachromosomal DNA transformation of Caenorhabditis elegans. Mol Cell Biol 5:3484–3496
Tufty R, Kretsinger RH (1975) Troponin and parvalbumin calcium binding regions predicted in myosin light chain and T4 lysozyme. Science 187:167–169
Way JC, Chalfie M (1988) mec-3, a homeobox-containing gene that specifies differentiation of the touch receptor neurons in C. elegans. Cell 54:5–16
Wood WB (1988) Embryology. In: Wood WB (ed) The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, pp 215–231
Wood WB, Hecht R, Carr S, Vanderslice R, Hirsh D (1980) Parental effects and phenotypic characterization of mutations that affect early development in Caenorhabditis elegans. Dev Biol 74:446–469
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Communicated by J. Campos-Ortega
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Carter, P.W., Roos, J.M. & Kemphues, K.J. Molecular analysis of zyg-11, a maternal-effect gene required for early embryogenesis of Caenorhabditis elegans . Molec. Gen. Genet. 221, 72–80 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00280370
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00280370