Transcription regulatory networks in Caenorhabditis elegans

Gene

Public Gene Name

mau-2  

Sequence Name

C09H6.3  

WB ID

WBGene00003136  

Description

mau-2 encodes an ortholog of budding yeast Scc4p, Drosophila CG4203, and human KIAA0892; MAU-2 is required (with PQN-85 and SCC-3) for normal mitotic chromosome segregation, and for cellular (e.g., neuronal) or axonal migration; MAU-2 is required for migration both embryonically and postembryonically, along both dorsoventral and longitudinal body axes; MAU-2 guides the axonal projection of AVM (and probably other neurons) by some cell-autonomous mechanism independent of SLT-1; MAU-2 is also required for normal larval development, locomotion, excretory canals and osmoregulation, phasmid morphology, and egg-laying; the primary sequences of MAU-2 and its Scc4-like orthologs are composed of tetratricopeptide repeats, and are highly divergent between yeast and metazoa; MAU-2 is expressed ubiquitously in embryos during late gastrulation, subsequently becoming restricted to neurons; mau-2 transcripts are abundant in oocytes, and maternal transcripts alone can support normal MAU-2 protein synthesis through the L3 larval stage (but not in L4 larvae or adults); MAU-2's N-terminal 371 residues of MAU-2 are its most conserved domain, and are sufficient to transgenically rescue mau-2 mutants; despite its behavioral phenotype, MAU-2 is thought to act early in development, since the uncoordinated phenotype of mau-2 mutants is maternal; while the uncoordinated phenotype of mau-2 mutants can be rescued either maternally or zygotically, the egg-laying phenotype of mau-2 mutants is purely zygotic; partially penetrant mau-2 dye-filling phenotypes occur on one side of the body, suggesting that MAU-2 acts on a whole side of an embryo at a time; while mau-2(RNAi) has no obvious early embryonic phenotype, joint mau-2/scc-3(RNAi) grossly deranges chromosomal segregation in early embryos, and mau-2(RNAi) enhances the lagging of anaphase chromosomes induced by pqn-85(RNAi).