Germline Maintenance Through the Multifaceted Activities of GLH/Vasa in Caenorhabditis elegans P Granules.

ABSTRACT: Vasa homologs are ATP-dependent DEAD-box helicases, multipotency factors, and critical components that specify and protect the germline. They regulate translation, amplify piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), and act as RNA solvents; however, the limited availability of mutagenesis-derived alleles and their wide range of phenotypes have complicated their analysis. Now, with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR/Cas9), these limitations can be mitigated to determine why protein domains have been lost or retained throughout evolution. Here, we define the functional motifs of GLH-1/Vasa in Caenorhabditis elegans using 28 endogenous, mutant alleles. We show that GLH-1's helicase activity is required to retain its association with P granules. GLH-1 remains in P gra

SUBMITTER: Marnik EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6827368 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature