An unexpectedly high degree of specialization and a widespread involvement in sterol metabolism among the C. elegans putative aminophospholipid translocases

摘要: P-type ATPases in subfamily IV are exclusively eukaryotic transmembrane proteins that have been proposed to directly translocate the aminophospholipids phosphatidylserine and phosphatidylethanolamine from exofacial cytofacial monolayer of plasma membrane. Eukaryotic genomes contain many genes encoding members this subfamily. At present it is unclear why there so kind per organism or what individual roles these perform development. We systematically investigated expression developmental function six, tat-1 through 6, ATPase encoded Caenorhabditis elegans genome. tat-5 only ubiquitously-expressed essential gene group. tat-6 a poorly-transcribed recent duplicate tat-5. tat-2 4 exhibit tissue-specific developmentally-regulated patterns. Strong both tat-4 occurs intestine certain other cells alimentary system. The two also expressed uterus, during spermatogenesis fully-formed spermatheca. alone pharyngeal gland cells, excretory system few developing vulva. pattern tat-3 almost completely different those tat-4. detectable steroidogenic tissues: hypodermis XXX as well most pharynx (except gland), various tissues reproductive uterus spermatheca) seam cells. Deletion individually interferes little not at all with regular progression growth development under normal conditions. However, become for sterol starvation. likely encodes housekeeping protein performs aminophospholipid translocase routinely. Although dispensable, seem be partly redundant. Expression patterns deprivation hypersensitivity deletion phenotype suggest carry out subtle metabolic functions, such fine-tuning metabolism digestive tissues. These findings uncover an unexpectedly high degree specialization widespread involvement among putative translocases.