A global profile of germline gene expression in C. elegans.

Author(s): Christian van Delden, R Begley, J. Nance, Allen J M Huxley, Jiming Wang, Paul Davis, Valerie Reinke, Simon Smith, Nam Keun Kim, S Scherer, S. Ward

Publication date: 2000-08-31

Journal: Molecular Cell

Keywords: Animals, Argonaute Proteins, Caenorhabditis elegans, genetics, Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins, Cell Cycle Proteins, Cytoskeletal Proteins, Drosophila Proteins, Gene Expression Profiling, Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental, Helminth Proteins, Male, Membrane Proteins, Oocytes, physiology, Proteins, RNA, Messenger, RNA-Induced Silencing Complex, Receptors, Notch, Spermatogenesis, Spermatozoa, X Chromosome

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Abstract

We used DNA microarrays to profile gene expression patterns in the C. elegans germline and identified 1416 germline-enriched transcripts that define three groups. The sperm-enriched group contains an unusually large number of protein kinases and phosphatases. The oocyte-enriched group includes potentially new components of embryonic signaling pathways. The germline-intrinsic group, defined as genes expressed similarly in germlines making only sperm or only oocytes, contains a family of piwi-related genes that may be important for stem cell proliferation. Finally, examination of the chromosomal location of germline transcripts revealed that sperm-enriched and germline-intrinsic genes are nearly absent from the X chromosome, but oocyte-enriched genes are not.