Cell interactions coordinate the development of the C. elegans egg-laying system.
Egg laying by the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans requires the functioning of the vulva, the gonad, the egg-laying muscles, and the two HSN neurons, which innervate these muscles. By analyzing a newly isolated mutant (dig-1) that displaces the gonad, we discovered that cell interactions coordinate the spatial relationships among the different components of the egg-laying system. First, the gonad induces the formation of the vulva, and vulval induction by dorsal gonads strongly suggests that the inductive signal can act at a distance. Second, the gonad acts at a distance to regulate the migrations of the sex myoblasts that generate the egg-laying musculature. Third, the positions of the axonal branch and synapses of each HSN neuron are displaced correspondingly with the rest of the egg-laying system in dig-1 animals, which suggests that cell interactions also control aspects of HSN development.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139.
J H
JH
Thomas
M J
MJ
Stern
H R
HR
Horvitz
D000818:Animals; D002107:Caenorhabditis / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D002465:Cell Movement; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D005260:Female; D009154:Mutation; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D010058:Oviposition; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology; D014844:Vulva / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology