title: Cis-regulatory mechanisms of gene expression in an olfactory neuron type in Caenorhabditis elegans.
abstract: The generation of cellular diversity is dependent on the precise spatiotemporal regulation of gene expression by both cis- and trans-acting mechanisms. The developmental principles regulating expression of specific gene subsets in individual cell types are not fully understood. Here we define the cis-regulatory mechanisms driving expression of cell-selective and broadly expressed genes in vivo in the AWB olfactory neuron subtype in C. elegans. We identify an element that is necessary to drive expression of neuron-selective chemoreceptor genes in the AWB neurons, and show that this element functions in a context-dependent manner. We find that the expression of broadly expressed sensory neuronal genes in the AWB neurons is regulated by diverse cis- and trans-regulatory mechanisms that act partly in parallel to the pathways governing expression of AWB-selective genes. We further demonstrate that cis-acting mechanisms driving gene expression in the AWB neurons appear to have diverged in related nematode species. Our results provide insights into the cis-regulatory logic driving cell-specific gene expression, and suggest that variations in this logic contribute to the generation of functional diversity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and National Center for Behavioral Genomics, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454, USA.
authors.forename: Eva B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Nokes
authors.forename: Alexander M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Van Der Linden
authors.forename: Caron
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Winslow
authors.forename: Saikat
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mukhopadhyay
authors.forename: Kristin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Piali
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sengupta
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D001482:Base Composition; D001483:Base Sequence; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000196:embryology* / Q000235:genetics*; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D004625:Embryo, Nonmammalian; D017353:Gene Deletion; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D008954:Models, Biological; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009832:Olfactory Nerve / Q000196:embryology* / Q000378:metabolism; D018034:Olfactory Receptor Neurons / Q000196:embryology / Q000378:metabolism; D012045:Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid / Q000502:physiology*; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D013045:Species Specificity