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Genetic Analysis of Nuclear Migration and Anchorage to Study LINC Complexes During Development of Caenorhabditis elegans

Protocol
First Online:
Part of the Methods in Molecular Biology book series (MIMB, volume 1840)

Abstract

Studying nuclear positioning in developing tissues of the model nematode Caenorhabditis elegans greatly contributed to the discovery of SUN and KASH proteins and the formation of the LINC model. Such studies continue to make important contributions into both how LINC complexes are regulated and how defects in LINC components disrupt normal development. The methods described explain how to observe and quantify the following: nuclear migration in embryonic dorsal hypodermal cells, nuclear migration through constricted spaces in larval P cells, nuclear positioning in the embryonic intestinal primordia, and nuclear anchorage in syncytial hypodermal cells. These methods will allow others to employ nuclear positioning in C. elegans as a model to further explore LINC complex regulation and function.

Key words

LINC KASH SUN C. elegans Nuclear migration Nuclear anchorage Nuclear envelope 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We thank past and present members of the Starr and Hermann labs for the continual development of these assays over the past 15 years. We thank Courtney Bone for the image in Fig. 2C and Venecia Valdez, Hongyan Hao, and Linda Ma for commenting on the manuscript. Studies in the Starr Lab are supported by the National Institutes of Health grant R01 GM073874. Studies in the Hermann lab are supported by the National Science Foundation grant MCB1613804 and the National Institutes of Health grant R15 GM120639.

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© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Molecular and Cellular BiologyUniversity of CaliforniaDavisUSA
  2. 2.Department of BiologyLewis and Clark CollegePortlandUSA

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