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Structure And Function Analysis Of Lin-14, A Temporal Regulator Of Postembryonic Developmental Events In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Yang Hong, Rosalind C. Lee, Victor R. Ambros

Victor R. Ambros

During postembryonic development of Caenorhabditis elegans, the heterochronic gene lin-14 controls the timing of developmental events in diverse cell types. Three alternative lin-14 transcripts are predicted to encode isoforms of a novel nuclear protein that differ in their amino-terminal domains. In this paper, we report that the alternative amino-terminal domains of LIN-14 are dispensable and that a carboxy-terminal region within exons 9 to 13 is necessary and sufficient for in vivo LIN-14 function. A transgene capable of expressing only one of the three alternative lin-14 gene products rescues a lin-14 null mutation and is developmentally regulated by lin-4. This shows …