PHA-4/FoxA cooperates with TAM-1/TRIM to regulate cell fate restriction in the C. elegans foregut.

ABSTRACT: A key question in development is how pluripotent progenitors are progressively restricted to acquire specific cell fates. Here we investigate how embryonic blastomeres in C. elegans develop into foregut (pharynx) cells in response to the selector gene PHA-4/FoxA. When pha-4 is removed from pharyngeal precursors, they exhibit two alternative responses. Before late-gastrulation (8E stage), these cells lose their pharyngeal identity and acquire an alternative fate such as ectoderm (Specification stage). After the Specification stage, mutant cells develop into aberrant pharyngeal cells (Morphogenesis/Differentiation stage). Two lines of evidence suggest that the Specification stage depends on transcriptional repression of ectodermal genes by pha-4. First, pha-4 exhibits strong synthetic phenot

SUBMITTER: Kiefer JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1855296 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature