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. 1987 Dec;117(4):657–670. doi: 10.1093/genetics/117.4.657

Assessment of X Chromosome Dosage Compensation in Caenorhabditis elegans by Phenotypic Analysis of lin-14

Leslie DeLong 1, Lawrence P Casson 1, Barbara J Meyer 1
PMCID: PMC1203239  PMID: 3428573

Abstract

Caenorhabditis elegans compensates for the difference in X chromosome gene dose between males (XO) and hermaphrodites (XX) through a mechanism that equalizes the levels of X-specific mRNA transcripts between the two sexes. We have devised a sensitive and quantitative genetic assay to measure perturbations in X chromosome gene expression caused by mutations that affect this process of dosage compensation. The assay is based on quantitating the precocious alae phenotype caused by a mutation that reduces but does not eliminate the function of the X-linked gene lin-14. We demonstrate that in diploid animals the lin-14 gene is dosage compensated between XO and XX animals. In XXX diploid animals, however, lin-14 expression is not compensated, implying that the normal dosage compensation mechanism in C. elegans lacks the capacity to compensate completely for the additional X chromosome in triplo-X animals. Using the lin-14 assay we compare the effects of mutations in the genes dpy-21, dpy-26, dpy-27, dpy-28, and dpy-22 on X-linked gene expression. Additionally, in the case of dpy-21 we correlate the change in phenotypic expression of lin-14 with a corresponding change in the lin-14 mRNA transcript level.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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