CELE_B0414.5, B0414.5

cpb-3 encodes a CPEB orthologous to Drosophila ORB, zebrafish ZORBA, and human CPEB1, and paralogous to FOG-1 and CPB-1/2; CPB-3 inhibits physiological apoptosis in oocytes, keeping it down to a normal level of ~50% in hermaphrodite gonads; independently of apoptosis, CPB-3 is also required for normal oogenesis, sperm/oocyte switching (upstream of FEM-3), and the transistion from mitosis to meiosis by oocytes (in parallel with GLD-3); cpb-3(RNAi) results in elevated (though not 100%) physiological germ cell apoptosis, independent of CEP-1; in cpb-3(RNAi) animals, excess physiological apoptosis actually promotes fertility, since cpb-3(RNAi) hermaphrodites have larger brood sizes than those with apoptosis suppressed by ced-3(n717), and aging ced-3(n717);cpb-3(RNAi) animals have abnormal oocytes that fail to exit pachytene and proceed through diakinesis; CPB-3 is mainly cytoplasmic, and strongly expressed in pachytene oocytes; cpb-3(bt17);daz-1(tj3) hermaphrodites have a synthetic phenotype of total sterility and masculinization; CPB-3 colocalizes with DAZ-1 in vivo, coimmunoprecipitates with DAZ-1, and binds DAZ-1 in two-hybrid assays.

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