Programmed cell death (PCD) is important for animal development and understanding this process may provide insight into human ailments such as cancer and neurodegenerative disease. Although much is known about global control of apoptotic cell death, relatively little is known about cell-specific signals that regulate PCD during development. Our long term goals are to understand the molecular features that distinguish cells destined to live from those destined to die;to understand how temporal control of cell death is achieved;and to determine whether caspase-dependent cell death is the only mode of cell death used during animal development. C. elegans is an excellent organism in which to study the control of PCD. Dying cells in developing animals are easily visualized, and genetic and molecular studies of PCD genes are generally facile. Most PCD in C. elegans is regulated by an evolutionarily conserved molecular pathway. Specifically, CED-3/caspase promotes PCD following activation by CED-4/Apaf-1. This process is kept in check by CED-9/Bcl-2, which inhibits CED-4, and by EGL-1, a BH3 domain-containing inhibitor of CED-9. It is widely believed that control of cell-specific death and its onset are regulated by controlling EGL-1 activity. However, we demonstrated two instances in which this paradigm does not hold up. First, in the tail-spike cell, CED-9 and EGL-1 play only a minor role in the control of cell death. In this cell, onset of death appears to be controlled by transcriptional induction of the ced-3 gene using the PAL-1 transcription factor, the C. elegans homolog of the vertebrate tumor-suppressor gene Cdx2. Second, in the linker cell, a program independent of all known cell death genes previously described in C. elegans, regulates cell death. Remarkably, this non-apoptotic program is morphologically similar to forms of vertebrate cell death that have not been studied in detail, suggesting that the process is likely to be conserved. Here we plan to pursue two specific aims: (1) We will use genetic and molecular approaches to understand how ced-3 transcription is controlled in the tail-spike cell to promote cell death. (2) We will use genetic strategies to uncover the mechanism by which the novel cell death pathway we discovered executes linker cell death. Given the morphological and molecular similarities between cell death programs in C. elegans and vertebrates, our studies are likely to reveal basic principles of cell death regulation common to these organisms. Public health: Inappropriate cell death underlies a host of human illnesses including neurodegenerative diseases, and lack of cell death is a major contributor to tumor development. Our studies will shed light on basic mechanisms regulating cell death, and should define proteins that may be used as therapeutic targets.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD042680-09
Application #
7898864
Study Section
Development - 2 Study Section (DEV2)
Program Officer
Coulombe, James N
Project Start
2002-06-01
Project End
2012-07-31
Budget Start
2010-08-01
Budget End
2011-07-31
Support Year
9
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$313,581
Indirect Cost
Name
Rockefeller University
Department
Genetics
Type
Other Domestic Higher Education
DUNS #
071037113
City
New York
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
10065
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Chiorazzi, Michael; Rui, Lixin; Yang, Yandan et al. (2013) Related F-box proteins control cell death in Caenorhabditis elegans and human lymphoma. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 110:3943-8
Blum, Elyse S; Abraham, Mary C; Yoshimura, Satoshi et al. (2012) Control of nonapoptotic developmental cell death in Caenorhabditis elegans by a polyglutamine-repeat protein. Science 335:970-3
Shaham, Shai (2009) galign: a tool for rapid genome polymorphism discovery. PLoS One 4:e7188
Deng, Xinzhu; Yin, Xianglei; Allan, Richard et al. (2008) Ceramide biogenesis is required for radiation-induced apoptosis in the germ line of C. elegans. Science 322:110-5
Blum, E S; Driscoll, M; Shaham, S (2008) Noncanonical cell death programs in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Cell Death Differ 15:1124-31
Schumacher, B; Schertel, C; Wittenburg, N et al. (2005) C. elegans ced-13 can promote apoptosis and is induced in response to DNA damage. Cell Death Differ 12:153-61