CELE_C08C3.3, lin-21, C08C3.3

mab-5 encodes a homeodomain transcription factor related to the Antennapedia, Ultrabithorax, and abdominal-A family of homeodomain proteins; during postembryonic development, mab-5 is required cell autonomously for specification of posterior cell fates, including hypodermal and neuronal fates, programmed cell deaths, cell proliferation and migration, and fate specification of the male-specific copulatory muscles and sensory rays; in addition, ectopic expression of mab-5 is sufficient to alter cell fates, such as direction of migration or sensory ray identity; in regions of the body where mab-5 expression overlaps with that of lin-39, another C. elegans HOM-C gene, the two genes appear to either compensate for one another's activity or act combinatorially to promote cell fates distinct from those where either gene is expressed alone; a mab-5:lacZ reporter fusion is expressed in cells in the posterior body region from the mid-gastrulation stage of embryogenesis through larval and adult stages; further, antibody staining reveals that MAB-5 expression in the V5 lineage is dynamic, switching on and off several times, while expression in V6 is continuous throughout most of the L1-L3 larval stages; early MAB-5 expression is V6 is dependent upon wild-type activity of pal-1, which encodes the C. elegans Caudal ortholog.

41299

6239