Caenorhabditis elegans innexins regulate active zone differentiation.
نویسندگان
چکیده
In a genetic screen for active zone defective mutants in Caenorhabditis elegans, we isolated a loss-of-function allele of unc-7, a gene encoding an innexin/pannexin family gap junction protein. Innexin UNC-7 regulates the size and distribution of active zones at C. elegans neuromuscular junctions. Loss-of-function mutations in another innexin, UNC-9, cause similar active zone defects as unc-7 mutants. In addition to presumptive gap junction localizations, both UNC-7 and UNC-9 are also localized perisynaptically throughout development and required in presynaptic neurons to regulate active zone differentiation. Our mosaic analyses, electron microscopy, as well as expression studies suggest a novel and likely nonjunctional role of specific innexins in active zone differentiation in addition to gap junction formations.
منابع مشابه
Gap junctions in C. elegans
As in other multicellular organisms, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans uses gap junctions to provide direct cell-to-cell contact. The nematode gap junctions are formed by innexins (invertebrate analogs of the connexins); a family of proteins that surprisingly share no primary sequence homology, but do share structural and functional similarity with connexins. The model organism C. elegans con...
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ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience
دوره 29 16 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2009