The C. elegans Sex-determining Gene fem-2 Encodes a Putative Protein Phosphatase
Date
1995
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The American Society for Cell Biology
Abstract
determination
in Caenorhabditis elegans suggests that the gene fem-2 plays an important role in
regulating a pathway transducing a non-cell-autonomous signal to a nuclear transcription
factor. The wild-type fem-2 gene was cloned by identifying sequences from the C.
elegans physical map that could restore normal Fem-2 function to homozygous mutant
fem-2 transgenic animals. cDNA sequences mapping to the minimal rescuing region
correspond to an open reading frame with a sequence similar to protein phosphatase 2C
enzymes from systems as diverse as yeast, humans, and plants, but the alignments
suggest that FEM-2 falls into a separate class of proteins than the canonical homologues.
Several fem-2 mutant alleles were sequenced, and the mutations are predicted to cause
protein changes consistent with their observed phenotypes, such as missense mutations
in conditional alleles, and a nonsense mutation in a predicted null allele. This is the first
evidence implicating phosphorylation and/or dephosphorylation as a control mechanism
in C. elegans sex determination
Description
Keywords
Biology
Citation
"The C. elegans Sex-determining Gene fem-2 Encodes a Putative Protein Phosphatase" Dave Pilgrim, Angela McGregor, Petra Jackle, Troy Johnson, and Dave Hansen Molecular Biology of the Cell Vol. 6, 1159-1171, September 1995