TY - JOUR
T1 - The T-box factor TBX-2 and the SUMO conjugating enzyme UBC-9 are required for ABa-derived pharyngeal muscle in C. elegans
AU - Roy Chowdhuri, Sinchita
AU - Crum, Tanya
AU - Woollard, Alison
AU - Aslam, Sobia
AU - Okkema, Peter G.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to Yuji Kohara, Morris Maduro, Andy Fire, David Miller, Bruce Bowerman, Bob Barstead, Ralf Schnabel, Eli Bar, and Dave Stone for the strains, plasmids and essential advice, and to Teresa Orenic, Jennifer Schmidt, and 2 anonymous reviewers for the critical comments on the manuscript. tbx-2 mutants were gratefully received from the C. elegans Gene Knockout Consortium, the National BioResource Project, Isao Katsura, and Gian Garriga. This work was supported by grants from the American Heart Association (0350548Z) and the NIH (GM053996) to P.G.O., and UK Medical Research Council and BBSRC to A.W. Some nematode strains used in this work were provided by the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center, which is funded by the NIH National Center for Research Resources (NCRR).
PY - 2006/7/15
Y1 - 2006/7/15
N2 - The C. elegans pharynx is produced from the embryonic blastomeres ABa and MS. Pharyngeal fate in the ABa lineage is specified by the combined activities of GLP-1/Notch-mediated signals and the TBX-37 and TBX-38 T-box transcription factors. Here, we show another T-box factor TBX-2 also functions in ABa-derived pharyngeal development. tbx-2 mutants arrest as L1 larvae lacking most or all ABa-derived pharyngeal muscles. In comparison, tbx-2 mutants retain ABa-derived marginal cells and pharyngeal muscles derived from MS. A tbx-2{proportion}gfp translational fusion is expressed in a dynamic pattern in C. elegans embryos beginning near the 100-cell stage. Early expression is limited to a small number of cells, which likely include the ABa-derived pharyngeal precursors, while later expression is observed in body wall muscles and a subset of pharyngeal neurons. TBX-2 contains 2 consensus sumoylation sites, and it interacts in a yeast two-hybrid assay with the UBC-9 and GEI-17 components of the C. elegans SUMO-conjugating pathway. ubc-9(RNAi) has been previously shown to cause variable embryonic and larval arrest, and we find that, like tbx-2 mutants, ubc-9(RNAi) animals lack ABa-derived pharyngeal muscles. ubc-9(RNAi) also alters the subnuclear distribution of TBX-2{proportion}GFP fusion protein, suggesting that UBC-9 and TBX-2 interact in C. elegans. Together, these results indicate that TBX-2 and SUMO-conjugating enzymes are necessary for ABa-derived pharyngeal muscle, and we hypothesize that TBX-2 function requires sumoylation. Sumoylation is increasingly recognized as an important mechanism controlling activity of many nuclear factors, and these results provide the first evidence that T-box factor activity may require sumoylation.
AB - The C. elegans pharynx is produced from the embryonic blastomeres ABa and MS. Pharyngeal fate in the ABa lineage is specified by the combined activities of GLP-1/Notch-mediated signals and the TBX-37 and TBX-38 T-box transcription factors. Here, we show another T-box factor TBX-2 also functions in ABa-derived pharyngeal development. tbx-2 mutants arrest as L1 larvae lacking most or all ABa-derived pharyngeal muscles. In comparison, tbx-2 mutants retain ABa-derived marginal cells and pharyngeal muscles derived from MS. A tbx-2{proportion}gfp translational fusion is expressed in a dynamic pattern in C. elegans embryos beginning near the 100-cell stage. Early expression is limited to a small number of cells, which likely include the ABa-derived pharyngeal precursors, while later expression is observed in body wall muscles and a subset of pharyngeal neurons. TBX-2 contains 2 consensus sumoylation sites, and it interacts in a yeast two-hybrid assay with the UBC-9 and GEI-17 components of the C. elegans SUMO-conjugating pathway. ubc-9(RNAi) has been previously shown to cause variable embryonic and larval arrest, and we find that, like tbx-2 mutants, ubc-9(RNAi) animals lack ABa-derived pharyngeal muscles. ubc-9(RNAi) also alters the subnuclear distribution of TBX-2{proportion}GFP fusion protein, suggesting that UBC-9 and TBX-2 interact in C. elegans. Together, these results indicate that TBX-2 and SUMO-conjugating enzymes are necessary for ABa-derived pharyngeal muscle, and we hypothesize that TBX-2 function requires sumoylation. Sumoylation is increasingly recognized as an important mechanism controlling activity of many nuclear factors, and these results provide the first evidence that T-box factor activity may require sumoylation.
KW - C. elegans
KW - Pharyngeal muscle
KW - T-box
KW - Tbx2 subfamily
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=33745227290&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ydbio.2006.04.001
DO - 10.1016/j.ydbio.2006.04.001
M3 - Article
C2 - 16701625
AN - SCOPUS:33745227290
SN - 0012-1606
VL - 295
SP - 664
EP - 677
JO - Developmental Biology
JF - Developmental Biology
IS - 2
ER -