Submission Date

4-22-2024

Document Type

Paper- Restricted to Campus Access

Department

Biology

Adviser

Rebecca Lyczak

Committee Member

Dale Cameron

Committee Member

Holly Hubbs

Department Chair

Dale Cameron

Project Description

Caenorhabditis elegans are transparent nematodes often used as model organisms. PAM-1 is a highly conserved puromycin sensitive aminopeptidase that regulates oocyte maturation and polarity establishment. Mutations in the pam-1 gene cause infertility, defects in polarity establishment, and abnormal progressions of meiosis and mitosis. CDC-25.1 dephosphorylates the maturating promoting factor in C. elegans oocytes, allowing oocytes to mature and become fertilized. I investigated protein interactions between PAM-1 and CDC-25.1 by observing oocyte maturation in the C. elegans gonad to uncover the mechanism behind PAM-1’s role in reproduction. Suppression of PAM-1 phenotypes have also been observed, of which a novel suppressor was found called lz6. The novel suppressor lz6 is hypothesized to be the causal mutation in the cdc-25.1 gene that suppressed PAM-1 phenotypes. Delayed oocyte maturation in pam-1(or403);lz6 mutants was found compared to pam-1(or403) via DIC and confocal microscopy, which supports the conclusion that lz6 is a loss of function mutation in cdc-25.1. Furthermore, knockdown of cdc-25.1 with RNAi revealed delayed oocyte maturation in wildtype worms but not pam-1(or403) or pam-1(or403);lz6 mutants. This suggests PAM-1 is downstream of CDC-25.1 in the oocyte maturation pathway.

Comments

This research is funded by NIH Grant R15GM110615.

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