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Caenorhabditis elegans SUR-5, a novel bu ... ctivity during vulval induction
Caenorhabditis elegans SUR-5, a novel but conserved protein, negatively regulates LET-60 Ras activity during vulval induction.
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The let-60 ras gene acts in a signal transduction pathway to control vulval differentiation in Caenorhabditis elegans. By screening suppressors of a dominant negative let-60 ras allele, we isolated three loss-of-function mutations in the sur-5 gene which appear to act as negative regulators of let-60 ras during vulval induction. sur-5 mutations do not cause an obvious mutant phenotype of their own, and they appear to specifically suppress only one of the two groups of let-60 ras dominant negative mutations, suggesting that the gene may be involved in a specific aspect of Ras activation. Consistent with its negative function, overexpressing sur-5 from an extragenic array partially suppresses the Multivulva phenotype of an activated let-60 ras mutation and causes synergistic phenotypes with a lin-45 raf mutation. We have cloned sur-5 and shown that it encodes a novel protein. We have also identified a potential mammalian SUR-5 homolog that is about 35% identical to the worm protein. SUR-5 also has some sequence similarity to acetyl coenzyme A synthetases and is predicted to contain ATP/GTP and AMP binding sites. Our results suggest that sur-5 gene function may be conserved through evolution.
Gu T, Orita S, Han M
Molecular and cellular biology
1998-08-01 00:00
18
8
4556-64
Amino Acid Sequence,Animals,Caenorhabditis elegans,Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins,Female,Gene Expression Regulation,Helminth Proteins,Humans,Molecular Sequence Data,Mutagenesis,Phenotype,Repressor Proteins,Sequence Homology, Amino Acid,Signal Transduction,ras Proteins,Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins,Helminth Proteins,Repressor Proteins,SUR-5 protein, C elegans,let-60 protein, C elegans,ras Proteins
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0347, USA
Mol. Cell. Biol.
NIGMS GM47869
0270-7306
474
True
9671465
