Transcription regulatory networks in Caenorhabditis elegans

Gene

Public Gene Name

dct-1  

Sequence Name

C14F5.1  

WB ID

WBGene00015776  

Description

dct-1 encodes a protein with similarity to the mammalian BNIP3 proteins that interact with Bcl-2 and the Adenovirus E1B 19kDa protein and that have been shown to have pro-apoptotic activity; loss of dct-1 activity via RNAi in daf-2 mutants and in gld-1; daf-2 doubly mutant animals indicates that dct-1 can function to regulate both lifespan and tumor cell proliferation; when expressed in mammalian cells, DCT-1 can: 1) induce delayed apoptosis and increase apoptosis when coexpressed with CED-3 (perhaps by increasing proteolyic processing of CED-3), 2) physically interact with CED-9 or the CED-3 prodomain when coexpressed, and 3) physically interact with both CED-9 and CED-3 when all three are coexpressed; chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments have demonstrated that the dct-1 promoter is bound in vivo by the forkhead transcription factor DAF-16; expression of DCT-1 in mammalian cells suggests that, like its mammalian orthologs, DCT-1 localizes to mitochondria via a predicted C-terminal transmembrane domain.