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The Caenorhabditis elegans sex determining gene fem‐3 is regulated post‐transcriptionally.
Author(s) -
Ahringer J.,
Rosenquist T.A.,
Lawson D.N.,
Kimble J.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
the embo journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 7.484
H-Index - 392
eISSN - 1460-2075
pISSN - 0261-4189
DOI - 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1992.tb05289.x
Subject(s) - library science , graduate students , biology , agriculture , biological sciences , sociology , microbiology and biotechnology , computer science , ecology , pedagogy
The fem‐3 gene of Caenorhabditis elegans is required for male development. Both maternal and zygotic fem‐3 activities are required for spermatogenesis in the XX hermaphrodite germline and for male development in somatic and germline tissues XO (male) animals. Here we show that fem‐3 RNA is contributed to embryos as a maternal product and that this RNA is degraded early in embryonic development. The poly(A) tail of embryonic fem‐3 RNA is substantially longer than that of adult hermaphrodites which indicates that poly(A) tail lengthening probably occurs at or soon after fertilization. During subsequent development, fem‐3 poly(A) tails shorten. The amount of fem‐3 RNA in XX and XO embryos is equivalent, suggesting sex‐specific regulation of maternal fem‐3 activity occurs post‐transcriptionally. The sequence of fem‐3 predicts an open reading frame that could encode a soluble protein; putative fem‐3 null mutants truncate this open reading frame. We discuss the implications of these results for the regulation and function of fem‐3.