Requirements for F-BAR proteins TOCA-1 and TOCA-2 in actin dynamics and membrane trafficking during Caenorhabditis elegans oocyte growth and embryonic epidermal morphogenesis.

The TOCA family of F-BAR-containing proteins bind to and remodel lipid bilayers via their conserved F-BAR domains, and regulate actin dynamics via their N-Wasp binding SH3 domains. Thus, these proteins are predicted to play a pivotal role in coordinating membrane traffic with actin dynamics during cell migration and tissue morphogenesis. By combining genetic analysis in Caenorhabditis elegans with cellular biochemical experiments in mammalian cells, we showed that: i) loss of CeTOCA proteins reduced the efficiency of Clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) in oocytes.

unc-94 encodes a tropomodulin in Caenorhabditis elegans.

unc-94 is one of about 40 genes in Caenorhabditis elegans that, when mutant, displays an abnormal muscle phenotype. Two mutant alleles of unc-94, su177 and sf20, show reduced motility and brood size and disorganization of muscle structure. In unc-94 mutants, immunofluorescence microscopy shows that a number of known sarcomeric proteins are abnormal, but the most dramatic effect is in the localization of F-actin, with some abnormally accumulated near muscle cell-to-cell boundaries.

Establishment of a tissue-specific RNAi system in C. elegans.

In C. elegans, mosaic analysis is a powerful genetic tool for determining in which tissue or specific cells a gene of interest is required. For traditional mosaic analysis, a loss-of-function mutant and a genomic fragment that can rescue the mutant phenotype are required.