Development, Vol 122, Issue 5 1601-1610, Copyright © 1996 by Company of Biologists

JOURNAL ARTICLES

The mec-8 gene of C. elegans encodes a protein with two RNA recognition motifs and regulates alternative splicing of unc-52 transcripts

EA Lundquist, RK Herman, TM Rogalski, GP Mullen, DG Moerman and JE Shaw
Department of Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul 55108, USA.

Mutations in the mec-8 gene of Caenorhabditis elegans were previously shown to affect the functions of body wall muscle and mechanosensory and chemosensory neurons. Mutations in mec-8 also strongly enhance the mutant phenotype of specific mutations in unc-52, a gene that encodes, via alternative splicing of pre-mRNA, a set of basement membrane proteins, homologs of perlecan, that are important for body wall muscle assembly and attachment to basement membrane, hypodermis and cuticle. We have cloned mec-8 and found that it encodes a protein with two RNA recognition motifs, characteristic of RNA binding proteins. We have used reverse transcription-PCR and RNase protection experiments to show that mec-8 regulates the accumulation of a specific subset of alternatively spliced unc-52 transcripts. We have also shown with antibodies to UNC-52 that mec-8 affects the abundance of a subset of UNC-52 isoforms. We propose that mec-8 encodes a trans-acting factor that regulates the alternative splicing of the pre-mRNA of unc-52 and one or more additional genes that affect mechanosensory and chemosensory neuron function.
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