The purpose of this project is to determine how signals from nerve cells control the degradation of cellular proteins in muscle. The experimental subject is a small roundworm, Caenorhabditis elegans, that has a relatively simple system of nerves and muscles. This organism is also conducive to simple and rapid genetic experiments. To observe protein degradation, we have introduced a foreign gene from a bacterium (E. coli) into the worm so that the fate of this protein can be easily followed by biochemical and immunochemical methods. Our objective is to use mutants that affect the function of nerves or muscles to determine how direct nerve-to-muscle connections and/or chemical signaling between nerves and muscles affects the rate of protein breakdown inside muscle cells.
