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First published online April 25, 2008

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How nanos is kept on hold

Many maternally provided transcripts play crucial roles in early development and often require tight translational regulation. During C. elegans embryogenesis, the maternal transcript nanos-2 (nos-2) is translationally repressed until the germline founder cell, called P₄, is born. In their dissection of this process (see p. 1803), Kuppuswamy Subramaniam and co-workers have discovered that four additional proteins (OMA-1, OMA-2, MEX-3 and SPN-4) are involved in this repression of nos-2. These proteins bind to the 3' UTR of nos-2 and repress it at different developmental stages: OMA-1 and OMA-2 in oocytes, and MEX-3 and SPN-4 in the embryo. What eventually releases nos-2 repression in P₄, the authors propose, is the competition between SPN-4 and POS-1 (a protein required for nos-2 translation) to bind to nos-2. Thus, POS-1 works, not by activating translation, but by de-repressing it; as such, the authors believe that the relative concentrations of POS-1 and SPN-4 have a crucial role in initiating germ cell-specific developmental programmes.

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Related articles in Development:

Multiple maternal proteins coordinate to restrict the translation of C. elegans nanos-2 to primordial germ cells

Shreyas Jadhav, Mainpal Rana, and Kuppuswamy Subramaniam
Development 2008 135: 1803-1812. [Abstract] [Full Text]  

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Related articles in Development Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?