Project description:Epigenetic factors guide cell fate decisions and can stabilize development by buffering environmental variation. HP1 proteins have a well-characterized role in heterochromatin packaging and gene regulation, while their function in organismal development is less well understood. Here we used genome-wide expression profiling to assess novel functions of the C. elegans HP1 homologue HPL-2 at specific developmental stages RNA was extracted from either mixed-stage embryos or from third larval stage worms for both wild-type N2 (Bristol) and hpl-2(tm1489) strains.
Project description:We generated gene expression profiles of N2 (wild type) and strain FAS43 (Histone H3.3 null worms containing knockout alleles of all genes with homology to human histone H3.3: his-69, his-70, his-71, his-72, his-74) at embryonic and first larval instar stages.
Project description:The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is often used as a model organism to study cell and developmental biology. Quantitative mass spectrometry has only recently been performed in C. elegans and, so far, most studies have been done on adult worm samples. Here we use quantitative mass spectrometry to characterise protein level changes across the four larval developmental stages (L1-L4) of C. elegans, in biological triplicate. In total, we identify 4,130 proteins and quantify 1,541 proteins that were identified across all four stages in all three biological repeats with at least 2 unique peptides per protein. Using hierarchical clustering and functional ontological analyses, we identify 21 protein groups containing proteins with similar protein profiles across the four stages, and highlight the most overrepresented biological functions in each of these protein clusters. In addition, we use the dataset to identify putative larval stage specific proteins in each individual developmental stage, as well as in the early and late developmental stages. In summary, this dataset provides a system-wide analysis of protein level changes across the four C. elegans larval developmental stages, which serves as a useful resource for the worm development research community.
