The C. elegans eyes absent ortholog EYA-1 is required for tissue differentiation and plays partially redundant roles with PAX-6.
eyes absent/Eya is a conserved transcriptional coactivator involved in development of various tissues and organs in arthropods and vertebrates. In Drosophila eye development, eya functions as part of the transcriptional regulatory network along with eyeless/Pax6, sine oculis/Six and dachshund/Dach. Here, we present the first functional study of the C. elegans Eya homolog, EYA-1. Loss of EYA-1 function by RNAi and deletion mutations resulted in early larval lethality with incomplete penetrance, associated with defects of differentiation and morphogenesis of several tissues and organs. In late embryogenesis, morphological defect in the head region, pharyngeal malformation and excess cell deaths in the anterior region were observed. Consistently, EYA-1 was expressed in the nuclei of a subset of anterior cells including pharyngeal and body wall muscle cells, starting from the morphogenesis stage in embryogenesis. Interestingly, eya-1 and pax-6/Pax6 mutants showed a strong genetic interaction for larval viability and embryonic anterior morphogenesis. Thus, eya-1 appears to play a partially redundant role with pax-6 during C. elegans embryogenesis.
Furuya
Miwa
M
Laboratory for Developmental Genomics, RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology, Kobe 650-0047, Japan.
Qadota
Hiroshi
H
Chisholm
Andrew D
AD
Sugimoto
Asako
A
D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000196:embryology*; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D047108:Embryonic Development; D004627:Embryonic Induction; D005136:Eye Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D047908:Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D007814:Larva / Q000502:physiology; D009024:Morphogenesis; D009154:Mutation; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D000071841:PAX6 Transcription Factor; D051761:Paired Box Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D019683:Penetrance; D017027:Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases / Q000502:physiology*; D012097:Repressor Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*
D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D005136:Eye Proteins; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins; D047908:Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D000071841:PAX6 Transcription Factor; D051761:Paired Box Transcription Factors; D012097:Repressor Proteins; D017027:Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases; C506511:eya-1 protein, C elegans