A gene involved in the development of the posterior body region of C. elegans.
Many regional differences in Caenorhabditis elegans body pattern are generated after hatching. Here I describe a gene, mab-5, that is required for the postembryonic development of nearly all ectodermal and mesodermal features that normally characterize a posterior body region. In addition, this gene is necessary for most cell migrations toward the posterior, but not for cell migrations toward the anterior. mab-5+ activity is cell-autonomous. In animals carrying a mutation in the gene lin-22, increases or decreases in mab-5+ gene dosage produce corresponding increases or decreases in the size of the region in which cells adopt posterior-specific fates. The model that best explains the data is that during postembryonic development, posterior-specific patterns of cell differentiation and cell migration are initiated by graded positional information, and that a common step in the different cellular responses to this information is mediated by mab-5 activity.
D000818:Animals; D002107:Caenorhabditis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002459:Cell Fusion; D002465:Cell Movement; D002470:Cell Survival; D005260:Female; D005796:Genes; D008297:Male; D009024:Morphogenesis; D009030:Mosaicism; D010641:Phenotype; D012733:Sex Differentiation