Exclusion of germ plasm proteins from somatic lineages by cullin-dependent degradation

Cynthia DeRenzo, Kimberly J. Reese and Geraldine Seydoux ()
Additional contact information
Cynthia DeRenzo: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Kimberly J. Reese: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Geraldine Seydoux: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Nature, 2003, vol. 424, issue 6949, 685-689

Abstract: Abstract In many animals, establishment of the germ line depends on segregation of a specialized cytoplasm, or ‘germ plasm’, to a small number of germline precursor cells during early embryogenesis1. Germ plasm asymmetry involves targeting of RNAs and proteins to a specific region of the oocyte and/or embryo2. Here we demonstrate that germ plasm asymmetry also depends on degradation of germline proteins in non-germline (somatic) cells. We show that five CCCH finger proteins, components of the Caenorhabditis elegans germ plasm, are targeted for degradation by the novel CCCH-finger-binding protein ZIF-1. ZIF-1 is a SOCS-box protein that interacts with the E3 ubiquitin ligase subunit elongin C. Elongin C, the cullin CUL-2, the ring finger protein RBX-1 and the E2 ubiquitin conjugation enzyme UBC5 (also known as LET-70) are all required in vivo for CCCH finger protein degradation. Degradation is activated in somatic cells by the redundant CCCH finger proteins MEX-5 and MEX-6, which are counteracted in the germ line by the PAR-1 kinase. We propose that segregation of the germ plasm involves both stabilization of germline proteins in the germ line and cullin-dependent degradation in the soma.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01887 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:424:y:2003:i:6949:d:10.1038_nature01887

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature01887

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().