The Caenorhabditis elegans cell death gene ced-4 encodes a novel protein and is expressed during the period of extensive programmed cell death.
Mutations in the gene ced-4 block almost all of the programmed cell deaths that normally occur during Caenorhabditis elegans development. We have cloned the ced-4 gene using a ced-4 mutation caused by the insertion of the transposon Tc4. When microinjected into a ced-4 animal, a 4.4 kb DNA fragment derived from the wild-type strain and corresponding to the region of the Tc4 insertion in the mutant ced-4(n1416) rescues the Ced-4 mutant phenotype. The ced-4 gene encodes a 2.2 kb RNA transcript. This mRNA is expressed primarily during embryogenesis, when most programmed cell deaths occur. The Ced-4 protein, as deduced from cDNA and genomic DNA clones, is 549 amino acids in length. Two regions of the putative Ced-4 protein product show some similarity to known calcium-binding domains.
Yuan
J
J
Program in Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115.
Horvitz
H R
HR
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D002135:Calcium-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D016923:Cell Death / Q000235:genetics*; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D015801:Helminth Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D015335:Molecular Probes; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D002135:Calcium-Binding Proteins; C089224:Ced-4 protein, C elegans; D015801:Helminth Proteins; D015335:Molecular Probes