Publication: INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF LOTR-1, SMG-2 AND F52B5.3 IN THE GERM LINE OF C. ELEGANS
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Date
2024-04-18
Authors
Kervin, Elizabeth
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Abstract
LOTR-1 is a newly characterized protein found in the germline of Caenorhabditis elegans. LOTR-1 is known to associate with the germ granule in C.elegans where it helps to maintain fertility through regulating what RNAs are made into protein and assists in proper germ granule function. When the germ granule is disrupted, C.elegans show impairment in fertility, as well as improper differentiation of the germline into other cell types. LOTR-1 is thought to be the worm homolog of the human proteins TDRD5 and TDRD7. In humans, these two proteins are normally found in the germline, but are often misexpressed in cancerous cells. Thus, learning more about how their homologs function may help us to understand what might be happening in human cancer cells. Previous research was conducted to identify proteins interacting with LOTR-1 in the germline, however how many of these proteins function is unknown. This project focused on two main things 1) Identifying the homologs of proteins associating with LOTR-1, particularly SMG-2 and F52B5.3 to get insight into their potential role in the germline. 2) Use RNAi and other techniques to determine if reducing the amount of these proteins altered C.elegans fertility. Our work found that F52B5.3 is homologous to a DNA/RNA helicase DHX36 which is known to have a role in spermatogenesis and maintaining genome integrity during transcription and replication. SMG-2 was found to be homologous to UPF2, a regulator of transcripts and to DNA/RNA helicases such as SSBP2 and ELOA2. This gives us a starting foundation to understand more about how these proteins may function in the C.elegans germline. Additionally, we determined that reducing levels of SMG-2 through RNAi reduced the brood size of C.elegans compared to controls, suggesting that SMG-2 is important for maintaining normal fertility. Interestingly, the F2B5.3 RNAi treated worms appeared to have a higher brood size compared to controls, this potentially suggests that F2B5.3 is a negative regulator of fertility. In general, these findings support that these two proteins do have a role in the germline, but more research is needed to understand how they may be functioning.