Ha. Wilkinson et al., RECIPROCAL CHANGES IN EXPRESSION OF THE RECEPTOR LIN-12 AND ITS LIGAND LAG-2 PRIOR TO COMMITMENT IN A C-ELEGANS CELL FATE DECISION, Cell, 79(7), 1994, pp. 1187-1198
During development of the C. elegans hermaphrodite gonad, two cells in
teract with each other, so that one chooses to become the anchor cell
(AC) and the other becomes a ventral uterine precursor cell (VU). This
interaction is mediated by the receptor LIN-12 and its apparent ligan
d LAG-2. We show that initially lin-12 and lag-2 are expressed in both
cells, but prior to commitment, the expression patterns change in a r
eciprocal manner, so that lin-12 expression becomes restricted to the
presumptive VU and lag-2 expression becomes restricted to the presumpt
ive AC. In addition, lin-12 activity promotes expression of lin-12 and
represses expression of lag-2. Furthermore, we show that positive aut
oregulation of lin-12 transcription in the presumptive VU is mediated
by a cis-acting 5' regulatory sequence and is necessary to specify the
VU fate. Our results suggest that transcriptional control is a compon
ent of the feedback mechanism involved in specifying the AC and VU fat
es.