title: Glycosylation genes expressed in seam cells determine complex surface properties and bacterial adhesion to the cuticle of Caenorhabditis elegans.
abstract: The surface of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is poorly understood but critical for its interactions with the environment and with pathogens. We show here that six genes (bus-2, bus-4, and bus-12, together with the previously cloned srf-3, bus-8, and bus-17) encode proteins predicted to act in surface glycosylation, thereby affecting disease susceptibility, locomotory competence, and sexual recognition. Mutations in all six genes cause resistance to the bacterial pathogen Microbacterium nematophilum, and most of these mutations also affect bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation by Yersinia species, demonstrating that both infection and biofilm formation depend on interaction with complex surface carbohydrates. A new bacterial interaction, involving locomotory inhibition by a strain of Bacillus pumilus, reveals diversity in the surface properties of these mutants. Another biological property--contact recognition of hermaphrodites by males during mating--was also found to be impaired in mutants of all six genes. An important common feature is that all are expressed most strongly in seam cells, rather than in the main hypodermal syncytium, indicating that seam cells play the major role in secreting surface coat and consequently in determining environmental interactions. To test for possible redundancies in gene action, the 15 double mutants for this set of genes were constructed and examined, but no synthetic phenotypes were observed. Comparison of the six genes shows that each has distinctive properties, suggesting that they do not act in a linear pathway.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell and Tissue Biology, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143, USA.
authors.forename: Maria J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Gravato-Nobre
authors.forename: Dave
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Stroud
authors.forename: Delia
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: O'Rourke
authors.forename: Creg
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Darby
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hodgkin
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001407:Bacillus / Q000502:physiology; D001422:Bacterial Adhesion; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000166:cytology* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000382:microbiology; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006031:Glycosylation; D057850:Hermaphroditic Organisms / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology; D008124:Locomotion; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D010641:Phenotype; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins