RESEARCH ARTICLE

LSY-2 is essential for maintaining the germ-soma distinction in C. elegans

  • Long Lin 1,2,3 ,
  • Yuping Li 3 ,
  • Libo Yan 2 ,
  • Gangming Zhang 3 ,
  • Yu Zhao 2 ,
  • Hong Zhang , 3
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  • 1. College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
  • 2. National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing 102206, China
  • 3. State Key Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Received date: 02 Feb 2015

Accepted date: 14 May 2015

Published date: 05 Aug 2015

Copyright

2014 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

The mechanisms that specify and maintain the characteristics of germ cells during animal development are poorly understood. In this study, we demonstrated that loss of function of the zinc-finger gene lsy-2 results in various somatic cells adopting germ cells characteristics, including expression of germline-specific P granules, enhanced RNAi activity and transgene silencing. The soma to germ transformation in lsy-2 mutants requires the activities of multiple chromatin remodeling complexes, including the MES-4 complex and the ISW-1 complex. The distinct germline-specific features in somatic cells and the gene expression profile indicate that LSY-2 acts in the Mec complex in this process. Our study demonstrated that lsy-2 functions in the maintenance of the soma-germ distinction.

Key words: P granules; soma; lsy-2; C. elegans

Cite this article

Long Lin , Yuping Li , Libo Yan , Gangming Zhang , Yu Zhao , Hong Zhang . LSY-2 is essential for maintaining the germ-soma distinction in C. elegans[J]. Protein & Cell, 2015 , 6(8) : 599 -609 . DOI: 10.1007/s13238-015-0173-1

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