Caenorhabditis elegans microtubule-severing complex MEI-1/MEI-2 katanin interacts differently with two superficially redundant beta-tubulin isotypes

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Srayko, M.
  • Mains, P.E.
  • Lu, C.

• The microtubule-severing protein complex katanin is required for a variety of important microtubule-base morphological changes in both animals and plants. Caenorhabditis elegans katanin is encoded by the mei-1 and mei-2 genes and is required for oocyte meiotic spindle formation and must be inactivated before the first mitotic cleavage. We identified a mutation, sb26, in the tbb-2 β-tubulin gene that partially inhibits MEI-1/MEI-2 activity: sb26 rescues lethality caused by ectopic MEI-1/MEI-2 expression during mitosis, and sb26 increases meiotic defects in a genetic background where MEI-1/MEI-2 activity is lower than normal. sb26 does not interfere with MEI-1/MEI-2 microtubule localization, suggesting that this mutation likely interferes with severing. Tubulin deletion alleles and RNA-mediated interference revealed that TBB-2 and the other germline enriched β-tubulin isotype, TBB-1, are redundant for embryonic viability. However, limiting MEI-1/MEI-2 activity in these experiments revealed that MEI-1/MEI-2 preferentially interacts with TBB-2– containing microtubules. Our results demonstrate that these two superficially redundant β-tubulin isotypes have functionally distinct roles in vivo.

• Date created

  2004

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Genes
  • Spindle component
  • Kinesin-like protein
  • MEI-1
  • Localization
  • C-elegans
  • Mutations
  • Dynamics in-vitro
  • MEC-7
  • Organizations

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R35717Z90

• License

  Copyright 2004, The American Society for Cell Biology