title: The Caenorhabditis elegans PcG-like gene sop-2 regulates the temporal and sexual specificities of cell fates.
abstract: How spatial, temporal, and sexual specific cues are integrated to specify distinct cell fates during multicellular organism development is largely unknown. Here we demonstrate that the Caenorhabditis elegans PcG-like gene sop-2 determines the temporal and sexual specificities of a row of hypodermal seam cells, in addition to specifying their positional identities. Loss-of-function of sop-2 causes premature expression of adult fates at larval stages. sop-2 acts upstream of lin-29 in the heterochronic pathway and genetically interacts with other heterochronic genes in specifying the temporal fates of seam cells at different larval stages. We show that the number of ALG-1-containing P bodies is increased in seam cells in sop-2 mutants. Furthermore, the microRNA-mediated repression of a heterochronic gene reporter is enhanced in sop-2 mutants. Mutations in sop-2 also cause partial hermaphrodite-to-male sexual transformations. The homeotic transformations, heterochronic defects, and sexual transformations can occur concomitantly in sop-2 mutants. In summary, our studies reveal that sop-2 integrates spatial, temporal, and sexual cues during C. elegans development.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing 102206, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Qingchun
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.forename: Yinyan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Xinxin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Cong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Yuxia
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Zuoyan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000166:cytology* / Q000235:genetics*; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D019070:Cell Lineage; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D017238:Genes, Helminth; D005801:Genes, Homeobox; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000378:metabolism; D008954:Models, Biological; D009154:Mutation / Q000235:genetics; D063146:Polycomb-Group Proteins; D012097:Repressor Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D019849:Sex Determination Processes; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000378:metabolism; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; C095571:LIN-29 protein, C elegans; D035683:MicroRNAs; D063146:Polycomb-Group Proteins; D012097:Repressor Proteins; C475806:Sop-2 protein, C elegans; D014157:Transcription Factors