CELE_C07H6.5, C07H6.5

cgh-1 encodes a putative DEAD-box RNA helicase, orthologous to budding yeast Dhh1p, fission yeast Ste13p, Drosophila ME31B, and human DDX6 (OMIM:600326); CGH-1 inhibits physiological apoptosis in oocytes, keeping it down to a normal level of ~50% in hermaphrodite gonads; independently of apoptosis, CGH-1 is also required for sperm function, oocyte fertilization, and early embryonic cytokinesis; by orthology with budding yeast, CGH-1 is expected to enable decapping-dependent mRNA degradation; CGH-1 is expressed in meiotic germ cells, oocytes, sperm, early embryonic P granules, other unidentified cytoplasmic foci of the gonad core and early embryos, and the germline precursors Z2 and Z3; cgh-1(RNAi) hermaphrodites lose ~100% of their oocytes to physiological apoptosis; gonadal CGH-1 accumulation is suppressed by either glh-1/4 RNAi or gld-1(q485);gld-2(q497) mutations, yet physiological apoptosis (which would normally be elevated by loss of CGH-1) is also abnormally low in these genotypes; cgh-1(RNAi) males have sterile sperm with abnormally short pseudopods; CGH-1 associates with CAR-1, DCAP-2, and CEY-2/3/4 in P granules and cytoplasmic particles of the early embryo; CGH-1 is required for normal CAR-1 localization in early embyros, and binds CAR-1 in an RNA-dependent manner.

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