title: The Caenorhabditis elegans locus lin-15, a negative regulator of a tyrosine kinase signaling pathway, encodes two different proteins.
abstract: The Caenorhabditis elegans locus lin-15 negatively regulates an intercellular signaling process that induces formation of the hermaphrodite vulva. The lin-15 locus controls two separate genetic activities. Mutants that lack both activities have multiple, ectopic pseudo-vulvae resulting from the overproduction of vulval cells, whereas mutants defective in only one lin-15 activity appear wild-type. lin-15 acts non-cell-autonomously to prevent the activation of a receptor tyrosine kinase/ras signaling pathway. We report here the molecular characterization of the lin-15 locus. The two lin-15 activities are encoded by contiguous genomic regions and by two distinct, non-overlapping transcripts that may be processed from a single mRNA precursor by trans-splicing. Based on the DNA sequence, the 719- and 1,440-amino acid lin-15 proteins are not similar to each other or to known proteins. lin-15 multivulva mutants, which are defective in both lin-15 activities, contain deletions and insertions that affect the lin-15 genomic region.
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139.
authors.forename: S G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Clark
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: H R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Horvitz
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000235:genetics* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D015801:Helminth Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009024:Morphogenesis; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D020794:Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases / Q000502:physiology*; D015398:Signal Transduction; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D014844:Vulva / Q000648:ultrastructure
chemical_list: D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D015801:Helminth Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors; C088818:lin-15A protein, C elegans; C088819:lin-15B protein, C elegans; D020794:Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases