Polycomb and Notch signaling regulate cell proliferation potential during Caenorhabditis elegans life cycle.

ABSTRACT: Stable cell fate is an essential feature for multicellular organisms in which individual cells achieve specialized functions. Caenorhabditis elegans is a great model to analyze the determinants of cell fate stability because of its invariant lineage. We present a tractable cell fate challenge system that uses the induction of fate-specifying transcription factors. We show that wild-type differentiated animals are highly resistant to fate challenge. Removal of heterochromatin marks showed marked differences: the absence of histone 3 lysine 9 methylation (H3K9) has no effect on fate stability, whereas Polycomb homolog mes-2 mutants lacking H3K27 methylation terminally arrest larval development upon fate challenge. Unexpectedly, the arrest correlated with widespread cell prolife

SUBMITTER: Coraggio F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6306570 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature