A bow-tie genetic architecture for morphogenesis suggested by a genome-wide RNAi screen in Caenorhabditis elegans.

ABSTRACT: During animal development, cellular morphogenesis plays a fundamental role in determining the shape and function of tissues and organs. Identifying the components that regulate and drive morphogenesis is thus a major goal of developmental biology. The four-celled tip of the Caenorhabditis elegans male tail is a simple but powerful model for studying the mechanism of morphogenesis and its spatiotemporal regulation. Here, through a genome-wide post-embryonic RNAi-feeding screen, we identified 212 components that regulate or participate in male tail tip morphogenesis. We constructed a working hypothesis for a gene regulatory network of tail tip morphogenesis. We found regulatory roles for the posterior Hox genes nob-1 and php-3, the TGF-β pathway, nuclear hormone receptors (e.g. nhr-25), the

SUBMITTER: Nelson MD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3048373 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature