Project description:The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is often used as a model organism to study cell and developmental biology. Quantitative mass spectrometry has only recently been performed in C. elegans and, so far, most studies have been done on adult worm samples. Here we use quantitative mass spectrometry to characterise protein level changes across the four larval developmental stages (L1-L4) of C. elegans, in biological triplicate. In total, we identify 4,130 proteins and quantify 1,541 proteins that were identified across all four stages in all three biological repeats with at least 2 unique peptides per protein. Using hierarchical clustering and functional ontological analyses, we identify 21 protein groups containing proteins with similar protein profiles across the four stages, and highlight the most overrepresented biological functions in each of these protein clusters. In addition, we use the dataset to identify putative larval stage specific proteins in each individual developmental stage, as well as in the early and late developmental stages. In summary, this dataset provides a system-wide analysis of protein level changes across the four C. elegans larval developmental stages, which serves as a useful resource for the worm development research community.
Project description:Thousands of transcripts accumulate in an oscillatory manner during C. elegans larval development. Here, we confirmed these oscillations to result from rhythmic RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) binding to these oscillating genes by performing RNAPII ChIP-seq and total RNA-seq on the same samples (see related submission)
Project description:Thousands of transcripts accumulate in an oscillatory manner during C. elegans larval development. Here, we performed total RNA sequencing to confirm and quantify transcript levels oscillations on samples that we used in parallel to probe rhythmic RNA polymerase II recruitment to these genes as a mechanism to generate RNA level oscillations (see parallel submission of ChIP-seq data)
Project description:The evolutionarily conserved Wnt/?-catenin signaling pathway plays a fundamental role during metazoan development, regulating numerous processes including cell fate specification, cell migration, and stem cell renewal. Wnt ligand binding leads to stabilization of the transcriptional effector ?-catenin and upregulation of target gene expression to mediate a cellular response. During larval development of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, Wnt/?-catenin pathways act in fate specification of two hypodermal cell types, the ventral vulval precursor cells (VPCs) and the lateral seam cells. Because little is known about targets of the Wnt signaling pathways acting during larval VPC and seam cell differentiation, we sought to identify genes regulated by Wnt signaling in these two hypodermal cell types. We conditionally activated Wnt signaling in larval animals and performed cell type?specific "mRNA tagging" to enrich for VPC and seam cell?specific mRNAs, and then used microarray analysis to examine gene expression compared to control animals. Two hundred thirty-nine genes activated in response to Wnt signaling were identified, and we characterized 50 genes further. The majority of these genes are expressed in seam and/or vulval lineages during normal development, and reduction of function for nine genes caused defects in the proper division, fate specification, fate execution, or differentiation of seam cells and vulval cells. Therefore, the combination of these techniques was successful at identifying potential cell type?specific Wnt pathway target genes from a small number of cells and at increasing our knowledge of the specification and behavior of these C. elegans larval hypodermal cells.