Cuticle Collagen Expression Is Regulated in Response to Environmental Stimuli by the GATA Transcription Factor ELT-3 in Caenorhabditis elegans.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Mesbahi H
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7268988 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:To define the C. elegans aging process at the molecular level, we used DNA microarray experiments to identify a set of 1294 age-regulated genes and found that the GATA transcription factors ELT-3, ELT-5, and ELT-6 are responsible for age regulation of a large fraction of these genes. Expression of elt-5 and elt-6 increases during normal aging, and both of these GATA factors repress expression of elt-3, which shows a corresponding decrease in expression in old worms. elt-3 regulates a large number of downstream genes that change expression in old age, including ugt-9, col-144, and sod-3. elt-5(RNAi) and elt-6(RNAi) worms have extended longevity, indicating that elt-3, elt-5, and elt-6 play an important functional role in the aging process. These results identify a transcriptional circuit that guides the rapid aging process in C. elegans and indicate that this circuit is driven by drift of developmental pathways rather than accumulation of damage.
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Project description:The short, asymmetrical DNA sequence to which the vertebrate GATA family of transcription factors binds is present in some Caenorhabditis elegans gene regulatory regions: it is required for activation of the vitellogenin genes and is also found just 5' of the TATA boxes of tra-2 and the msp genes. In vertebrates GATA-1 is specific to erythroid lineages, whereas GATA-2 and GATA-3 are present in multiple tissues. In an effort to identify the trans-acting factors that may recognize this sequence element in C. elegans, we used a degenerate oligonucleotide to clone a C. elegans homolog to this gene. We call this gene elt-1 (erythrocytelike transcription factor). It is single copy and specifies a 1.75-kb mRNA that is present predominantly, if not exclusively, in embryos. The region of elt-1 encoding two zinc fingers is remarkably similar to the DNA-binding domain of the vertebrate GATA-binding proteins. However, outside of the DNA-binding domains the amino acid sequences are quite divergent. Nevertheless, introns are located at identical or nearly identical positions in elt-1 and the mouse GATA-1 gene. In addition, elt-1 mRNA is trans-spliced to the 22-base untranslated leader, SL1. The DNA upstream of the elt-1 TATA box contains eight copies of the GATA recognition sequence within the first 300 bp, suggesting that elt-1 may be autogenously regulated. Our results suggest that the specialized role of GATA-1 in erythroid gene expression was derived after separation of the nematodes and the line that led to the vertebrates, since C. elegans lacks an erythroid lineage.
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Project description:ELT-2 is the major transcription factor required for Caenorhabditis elegans intestinal development. It initiates in embryos to promote development then persists after hatching through larval and adult stages. Though the sites of ELT-2 binding are characterized and the transcriptional changes that result from ELT-2 depletion are described, a major missing piece has been the lack of an intestine-specific transcriptome profile over developmental time. We generated this dataset by Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) intestine cells at distinct developmental stages. We analyzed this dataset in conjunction with previously conducted ELT-2 studies to evaluate ELT-2’s role in directing the intestinal regulatory network through development. We found that only 33% of intestine-enriched genes in the embryo were direct targets of ELT-2 but that number increased to 75% by the L3 stage. This suggests additional transcription factors promote intestinal transcription especially in the embryo. Furthermore, only half of ELT-2’s direct target genes were dependent on ELT-2 for their proper expression levels, and an equal proportion of those responded to elt-2 depletion with over-expression as with under-expression. That is, ELT-2 can either activate or repress direct target genes. Indeed, we observed that ELT-2 repressed its own promoter, implicating new models for its autoregulation. Together, our results illustrate that ELT-2 impacts roughly 20 – 50% of intestine-specific genes, that ELT-2 both positively and negatively controls its direct targets, and that our current model of the intestinal regulatory network is incomplete as the factors responsible for directing the expression of many intestinal genes remain unknown.
2023-05-04 | GSE214581 | GEO
Project description:Cellular damage caused by reactive oxygen species is believed to be a major contributor to age-associated diseases. Previously, we characterized the Caenorhabditis elegans Brap2 ortholog (BRAP-2) and found that it is required to prevent larval arrest in response to elevated levels of oxidative stress. Here, we report that C. elegans brap-2 mutants display increased expression of SKN-1-dependent, phase II detoxification enzymes that is dependent on PMK-1 (a p38 MAPK C. elegans ortholog). An RNA-interference screen was conducted using a transcription factor library to identify genes required for increased expression of the SKN-1 target gst-4 in brap-2 mutants. We identified ELT-3, a member of the GATA transcription factor family, as a positive regulator of gst-4p::gfp expression. We found that ELT-3 interacts with SKN-1 to activate gst-4 transcription in vitro and that elt-3 is required for enhanced gst-4 expression in the brap-2(ok1492) mutant in vivo Furthermore, nematodes overexpressing SKN-1 required ELT-3 for life-span extension. Taken together, these results suggest a model where BRAP-2 acts as negative regulator of SKN-1 through inhibition of p38 MAPK activity, and that the GATA transcription factor ELT-3 is required along with SKN-1 for the phase II detoxification response in C. elegans.
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Project description:The mechanisms involved in the recognition of microbial pathogens and activation of the immune system have been extensively studied. However, the mechanisms involved in the recovery phase of an infection are incompletely characterized at both the cellular and physiological levels. Here, we establish a Caenorhabditis elegans-Salmonella enterica model of acute infection and antibiotic treatment for studying biological changes during the resolution phase of an infection. Using whole genome expression profiles of acutely infected animals, we found that genes that are markers of innate immunity are down-regulated upon recovery, while genes involved in xenobiotic detoxification, redox regulation, and cellular homeostasis are up-regulated. In silico analyses demonstrated that genes altered during recovery from infection were transcriptionally regulated by conserved transcription factors, including GATA/ELT-2, FOXO/DAF-16, and Nrf/SKN-1. Finally, we found that recovery from an acute bacterial infection is dependent on ELT-2 activity.
| S-EPMC4207467 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The two GATA transcription factors ELT-2 and ELT-7 function in the differentiation of the C. elegans intestine. ELT-2 loss causes lethality. ELT-7 loss causes no obvious phenotype but enhances the elt-2(-) intestinal phenotype. Thus, ELT-2 and ELT-7 appear partially redundant, with ELT-2 being more influential. To investigate the different regulatory roles of ELT-2 and ELT-7, we compared the transcriptional profiles of pure populations of wild-type, elt-2(-), elt-7(-), and elt-7(-); elt-2(-) double mutant L1-stage larvae. Consistent with the mutant phenotypes, loss of ELT-2 had a>25 fold greater influence on the number of significantly altered transcripts compared to the loss of ELT-7; nonetheless, the levels of numerous transcripts changed upon loss of ELT-7 in the elt-2(-) background. The quantitative responses of individual genes revealed a more complicated behaviour than simple redundancy/partial redundancy. In particular, genes expressed only in the intestine showed three distinguishable classes of response in the different mutant backgrounds. One class of genes responded as if ELT-2 is the major transcriptional activator and ELT-7 provides variable compensatory input. For a second class, transcript levels increased upon loss of ELT-2 but decreased upon further loss of ELT-7, suggesting that ELT-7 actually overcompensates for the loss of ELT-2. For a third class, transcript levels also increased upon loss of ELT-2 but remained elevated upon further loss of ELT-7, suggesting overcompensation by some other intestinal transcription factor(s). In spite of its minor loss-of-function phenotype and its limited sequence similarity to ELT-2, ELT-7 expressed under control of the elt-2 promoter is able to rescue elt-2(-) lethality. Indeed, appropriately expressed ELT-7, like appropriately expressed ELT-2, is able to replace all other core GATA factors in the C. elegans endodermal pathway. Overall, this study focuses attention on the quantitative intricacies behind apparent redundancy or partial redundancy of two related transcription factors.
| S-EPMC6476323 | biostudies-literature
Project description:To understand the molecular processes underlying aging, we screened modENCODE ChIP-seq data to identify transcription factors that bind to age-regulated genes in C. elegans. The most significant hit was the GATA transcription factor encoded by elt-2, which is responsible for inducing expression of intestinal genes during embryogenesis. Expression of ELT-2 decreases during aging, beginning in middle age. We identified genes regulated by ELT-2 in the intestine during embryogenesis, and then showed that these developmental genes markedly decrease in expression as worms grow old. Overexpression of elt-2 extends lifespan and slows the rate of gene expression changes that occur during normal aging. Thus, our results identify the developmental regulator ELT-2 as a major driver of normal aging in C. elegans.
| S-EPMC4829211 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In analyzing the transcriptional networks that regulate development, one ideally would like to determine whether a particular transcription factor binds directly to a candidate target promoter inside the living embryo. Properties of the Caenorhabditis elegans elt-2 gene, which encodes a gut-specific GATA factor, have allowed us to develop such a method. We previously have shown, by means of ectopic expression studies, that elt-2 regulates its own promoter. To test whether this autoregulation is direct, we fused green fluorescent protein (GFP) close to the C terminus of elt-2 in a construct that contains the full elt-2 promoter and the full elt-2 zinc finger DNA binding domain; the construct is expressed correctly (i.e., only in the gut lineage) and is able to rescue the lethality of an elt-2 null mutant. Multicopy transgenic arrays of this rescuing elt-2::GFP construct were integrated into the genome and transgenic embryos were examined when the developing gut has 4-8 cells; the majority of these embryonic gut nuclei show two discrete intense foci of fluorescence. We interpret these fluorescent foci as the result of ELT-2::GFP binding directly to its own promoter within nuclei of the developing gut lineage. Numerous control experiments, both genetic and biochemical, all support this conclusion and support the specificity of the binding. The approach should be applicable to studying other transcription factors binding target promoters, all within the living C. elegans embryo.
| S-EPMC18381 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The ELT-2 GATA factor normally functions in differentiation of the C. elegans endoderm, downstream of endoderm specification. We have previously shown that, if ELT-2 is expressed sufficiently early, it is also able to specify the endoderm and to replace all other members of the core GATA-factor transcriptional cascade (END-1, END-3, ELT-7). However, such rescue requires multiple copies (and presumably overexpression) of the end-1p::elt-2 cDNA transgene; a single copy of the transgene does not rescue. We have made this observation the basis of a genetic screen to search for genetic modifiers that allow a single copy of the end-1p::elt-2 cDNA transgene to rescue the lethality of the end-1 end-3 double mutant. We performed this screen on a strain that has a single copy insertion of the transgene in an end-1 end-3 background. These animals are kept alive by virtue of an extrachromosomal array containing multiple copies of the rescuing transgene; the extrachromosomal array also contains a toxin under heat shock control to counterselect for mutagenized survivors that have been able to lose the rescuing array. A screen of ?14,000 mutagenized haploid genomes produced 17 independent surviving strains. Whole genome sequencing was performed to identify genes that incurred independent mutations in more than one surviving strain. The C. elegans gene tasp-1 was mutated in four independent strains. tasp-1 encodes the C. elegans homolog of Taspase, a threonine-aspartic acid protease that has been found, in both mammals and insects, to cleave several proteins involved in transcription, in particular MLL1/trithorax and TFIIA. A second gene, pqn-82, was mutated in two independent strains and encodes a glutamine-asparagine rich protein. tasp-1 and pqn-82 were verified as loss-of-function modifiers of the end-1p::elt-2 transgene by RNAi and by CRISPR/Cas9-induced mutations. In both cases, gene loss leads to modest increases in the level of ELT-2 protein in the early endoderm although ELT-2 levels do not strictly correlate with rescue. We suggest that tasp-1 and pqn-82 represent a class of genes acting in the early embryo to modulate levels of critical transcription factors or to modulate the responsiveness of critical target genes. The screen's design, rescuing lethality with an extrachromosomal transgene followed by counterselection, has a background survival rate of <10-4 without mutagenesis and should be readily adapted to the general problem of identifying suppressors of C. elegans lethal mutations.
| S-EPMC5940137 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Some types of collagens, including transmembrane MACIT collagens and C. elegans cuticle collagens, are N-terminally cleaved at a dibasic site that resembles the consensus for furin or other proprotein convertases of the subtilisin/kexin (PCSK) family. Such cleavage may release transmembrane collagens from the plasma membrane and affect extracellular matrix assembly or structure. However, the functional consequences of such cleavage are unclear and evidence for the role of specific PCSKs is lacking. Here, we used endogenous collagen fusions to fluorescent proteins to visualize the secretion and assembly of the first collagen-based cuticle in C. elegans and then tested the role of the PCSK BLI-4 in these processes. Unexpectedly, we found that cuticle collagens SQT-3 and DPY-17 are secreted into the extraembryonic space several hours before cuticle matrix assembly. Furthermore, this early secretion depends on BLI-4/PCSK; in bli-4 and cleavage-site mutants, SQT-3 and DPY-17 are not efficiently secreted and instead form large intracellular aggregates. Their later assembly into cuticle matrix is reduced but not entirely blocked. These data reveal a role for collagen N-terminal processing in intracellular trafficking and in the spatial and temporal restriction of matrix assembly in vivo . Our observations also prompt a revision of the classic model for C. elegans cuticle matrix assembly and the pre-cuticle-to-cuticle transition, suggesting that cuticle layer assembly proceeds via a series of regulated steps and not simply by sequential secretion and deposition.
| S-EPMC10274747 | biostudies-literature