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Roles of the Homothorax/Meis/Prep homolog UNC-62 and the Exd/Pbx homologs CEH-20 and CEH-40 in C. elegans embryogenesis

Kimberly Van Auken^1,*, Daniel Weaver^1,, Barbara Robertson¹, Meera Sundaram², Tassa Saldi¹, Lois Edgar¹, Ulrich Elling^1,, Monica Lee¹, Queta Boese^1, and William B. Wood^1,¶

¹ Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0347, USA
² Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6145, USA
^* Present address: Department of Pediatrics, UCHSC, 4200 E. 9th Avenue, Denver, CO 80262, USA
Present address: Array BioPharma, 3200 Walnut St., Boulder, CO 80301, USA
Present address: EMBL Heidelberg, Meyerhofstrasse 1, Heidelberg D-69117, Germany
Present address: Dharmacon Research, 1376 Miners Drive, Lafayette, CO 80026, USA

^¶ Author for correspondence (e-mail: wood{at}stripe.colorado.edu)

Accepted 30 July 2002

Co-factor homeodomain proteins such as Drosophila Homothorax (Hth) and Extradenticle (Exd) and their respective vertebrate homologs, the Meis/Prep and Pbx proteins, can increase the DNA-binding specificity of Hox protein transcription factors and appear to be required for many of their developmental functions. We show that the unc-62 gene encodes the C. elegans ortholog of Hth, and that maternal-effect unc-62 mutations can cause severe posterior disorganization during embryogenesis (Nob phenotype), superficially similar to that seen in embryos lacking function of either the two posterior-group Hox genes nob-1 and php-3 or the caudal homolog pal-1. Other zygotically acting unc-62 alleles cause earlier embryonic arrest or incompletely penetrant larval lethality with variable morphogenetic defects among the survivors, suggesting that unc-62 functions are required at several stages of development. The differential accumulation of four unc-62 transcripts is consistent with multiple functions. The C. elegans exd homologs ceh-20 and ceh-40 interact genetically with unc-62 and may have overlapping roles in embryogenesis: neither CEH-20 nor CEH-40 appears to be required when the other is present, but loss of both functions causes incompletely penetrant embryonic lethality in the presence of unc-62(+) and complete embryonic lethality in the presence of an unc-62 hypomorphic allele.

Key words: Embryonic patterning, Hox proteins, Meis family, PBC family, Transcription factors

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