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Binary specification of the embryonic lineage in Caenorhabditis elegans

Nature volume 390, pages 294–298 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

In Caenorhabditis elegans, the early embryo contains five somatic founder cells (known as AB, MS, E, C and D) which give rise to very different lineages. Two simply produce twenty intestinal (E) or muscle (D) cells each, whereas the remainder produce a total of 518 cells which collectively contribute in a complex pattern to a variety of tissues1. A central problem in embryonic development is to understand how the developmental potential of blastomeres is restricted to permit the terminal expression of such complex differentiation patterns. Here we identify a gene, lit-1, that appears to play a central role in controlling the asymmetry of cell division during embryogenesis in C. elegans. Mutants in lit-1 suggest that its product controls up to six consecutive binary switches which cause one of the two equivalent cells produced at each cleavage to assume a posterior fate. Most blastomere identities in C. elegans may therefore stem from a process of stepwise binary diversification.

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Figure 1: Tissue differentiation in wild-type (a, c, e, g) at the 1.5-fold stage of embryogenesis1 and in two lit-1 (t1512) embryos (one embryo, b, d, f; the second, h).
Figure 2: Lineage analysis of lit-1 embryos with a four-dimensional microscope2.
Figure 3: The temperature-sensitive period of lit-1 (t1512).
Figure 4: Requirement of lit-1 at multiple stages during development.

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  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie, 82152, Martinsried, Germany

    Titus Kaletta, Heinke Schnabel & Ralf Schnabel

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  1. Titus Kaletta
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Kaletta, T., Schnabel, H. & Schnabel, R. Binary specification of the embryonic lineage in Caenorhabditis elegans. Nature 390, 294–298 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/36869

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