The helicase CHD-7 regulates dauer entry and morphogenesis

GODOY, LUCIANA F.; HOCHBAUM, DANIEL

Valparaíso

Conferencia; III Latin American Worm Meeting; 2023

Centro Interdisciplinario De Neurociencia De Valparaíso

Dauers are long-lived larvae specialized in survival and dispersal that are induced when C. elegans encounters harsh environmental conditions in early development. The diapause entry implies an indefinitely delay of reproductive fates and is followed by massive tissue remodeling, constituting a great model to study phenotypic plasticity. Previously, in a RNAi screen looking for dauer suppressors, we identified the chromodomain helicase CHD-7. Loss of chd-7 completely bypass dauer development or fail to complete morphogenesis, resulting in partial dauers (Figure 1A). Epistasis analysis placed CHD-7 in the TGF-β/DAF-7 pathway but also regulating the TGF- β/DBL-1 pathway, functioning as a TGF-β pleiotropic regulator. RNA-seq analysis of partial dauers developed from chd-7 mutants, show 84 DEGs (Differential Expressed Genes) when compared to normal dauers (Figure 1B). Among them, there is high representation of GPCRs (G-protein coupled receptors), collagens and transcription factors. Because chd-7(gk290); daf-2(e1370) forms partial dauers, we reasoned that among those DEGs we might find genes required for dauer development/morphogenesis. Thus, we conducted a RNAi-based screen to identify CHD-7 functional targets using RNAi-hypersensitive strains. In this work we present novel candidate genes required for dauer development and morphogenesis.