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Genetics, Vol. 168, 1259-1273, November 2004, Copyright © 2004
doi:10.1534/genetics.104.027953
Gene Interactions in Caenorhabditis elegans Define DPY-31 as a Candidate Procollagen C-Proteinase and SQT-3/ROL-4 as Its Predicted Major Target
Jacopo Novelli*,
Shawn Ahmed
and
Jonathan Hodgkin*,1
* Genetics Unit, Department of Biochemistry, Oxford OX1 3QU, United Kingdom
Department of Biology, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3280
1 Corresponding author: Genetics Unit, Department of Biochemistry, South Parks Rd., Oxford OX1 3QU, United Kingdom.
E-mail: jah{at}bioch.ox.ac.uk
Zinc metalloproteases of the BMP-1/TOLLOID family (also known as astacins) are extracellular enzymes involved in important developmental processes in metazoans. We report the characterization of the Caenorhabditis elegans gene dpy-31, which encodes the first essential astacin metalloprotease identified in this organism. Loss-of-function mutations in dpy-31 result in cuticle defects, abnormal morphology, and embryonic lethality, indicating that dpy-31 is required for formation of the collagenous exoskeleton. DPY-31 is widely expressed in the hypodermal cells, which are responsible for cuticle secretion. We have investigated the dpy-31 function through reversion analysis. While complete reversion can be obtained only by intragenic suppressors, reversion of the Dpy-31 lethal phenotype also can be caused by dominant extragenic suppressors. Nine extragenic suppressors carry mutations in the uniquely essential collagen gene sqt-3, which we show is the same gene as rol-4. Most mutations exhibit the unusual property of exclusively dominant suppression and all affect the sequence of the SQT-3 collagen C terminus. This suggests that DPY-31 is responsible for C-terminal proteolytic processing of collagen trimers and is therefore a structural and functional homolog of vertebrate BMP-1. The results also demonstrate the critical importance of the collagen C-terminal sequence, which is highly conserved among all 49 members of the SQT-3 subfamily.
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