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Type II platelet‐activating factor‐acetylhydrolase is essential for epithelial morphogenesis in C. elegans
Author(s) -
Inoue Takao,
Sugimoto Asako,
Arai Hiroyuki
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.20.5.lb43-d
Subject(s) - caenorhabditis elegans , morphogenesis , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , mutant , drosophila melanogaster , gene isoform , platelet activating factor , biochemistry , gene , immunology
Type II platelet‐activating factor‐acetylhydrolase (PAF‐AH (II)) is an N ‐myristoylated enzyme that contains a lipase/esterase catalytic motif and selectively hydrolyzes the sn ‐2 acetyl ester of PAF and other short‐chain acyl groups attached to phosphoglycerides. However, the physiological role of this enzyme remains to be elucidated. PAF‐AH (II) is conserved in a variety of species ranging from a simple multicellular organism, Caenorhabditis elegans , to mammals. C. elegans possesses two homologous PAF‐AH (II) genes named paf‐1 and paf‐2 . In this study, we generated these two loss‐of‐function mutants to elucidate the in vivo PAF‐AH (II) function. Surprisingly, mutants of paf‐2, a major isoform of C. elegans PAF‐AH (II)s, exhibits gross defects in epithelial sheet formation, resulting in unsuccessful subsequent morphogenesis with complete penetrance. Moreover, paf‐2 RNAi worms show a variable abnormal morphology (Vab) including ectopic protrusions and a lumpy shape at the late embryonic and early larval stages due to epithelial organization defects. Consistent with these phenotypes, PAF‐AH (II) is predominantly expressed in epithelial cells of C. elegans. This study demonstrates for the first time that PAF‐AH (II) is essential for epithelial morphogenesis.