Competence for chemical reprogramming of sexual fate correlates with an intersexual molecular signature in Caenorhabditis elegans.

ABSTRACT: In multicellular organisms, genetic programs guide cells to adopt cell fates as tissues are formed during development, maintained in adults, and repaired after injury. Here we explore how a small molecule in the environment can switch a genetic program from one fate to another. Wild-type Caenorhabditis elegans XX adult hermaphrodites make oocytes continuously, but certain mutant XX adults make sperm instead in an otherwise hermaphrodite soma. Thus, puf-8; lip-1 XX adults make only sperm, but they can be switched from sperm to oocyte production by treatment with a small-molecule MEK inhibitor. To ask whether this chemical reprogramming is common, we tested six XX sperm-only mutants, but found only one other capable of cell fate switching, fbf-1; lip-1. Therefore, reprogramming competence re

SUBMITTER: Sorokin EP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4196613 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature