CELE_W02A2.7, W02A2.7

mex-5 encodes a novel protein that contains two CCCH zinc finger motifs; maternally provided MEX-5, which functions partly redundantly with the highly similar CCCH finger protein MEX-6, is essential for transducing polarity cues and establishing soma/germline asymmetry in the early embryo; in regulating soma/germline asymmetry, MEX-5 interacts with, and activates, the SOCS-box protein ZIF-1, which functions as part of an E3 ubiquitin ligase complex that degrades germ plasm proteins in somatic blastomeres; accordingly, ectopic expression of MEX-5 throughout the early embryo results in reduced expression of germline proteins in germline blastomeres; MEX-5 activity is regulated in vivo by PLK-1 and PLK-2, which presumably bind and phosphorylate MBK-2-primed MEX-5; MEX-5 is a cytoplasmic protein expressed at uniform levels in oocytes and newly fertilized eggs; from the 1-cell to 4-cell stages of embryogenesis, MEX-5 expression is dynamic, with highest levels seen in the anterior AB blastomere and, for a time, its daughters, the anterior portion of the P1 blastomere, P1 centrosomes (both, then posterior only), and the EMS and C blastomeres; the asymmetric distribution of MEX-5 in early embryos depends upon a phosphorylation/dephosphorylation cycle by the PAR-1 kinase and PP2A phosphatases including LET-92, that regulate MEX-5's association with slow- or fast-diffusing RNA-containing complexes.

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