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Mutations in the clk-1 gene of Caenorhabditis elegans affect developmental and behavioural timing

Five allelic, maternal-effect mutations which affect developmental and behavioral timing in Caenorhabditis elegans have been identified. They result in a mean lengthening of embryonic and post-embryonic development, the cell cycle period, and life span, as well as the periods of the defecation, swimming, and pumping cycles. These mutants also display a number of additional phenotypes related to timing. For example, the variability in the length of embryonic development is several times larger in the mutants than in the wild-type, resulting in the occasional production of mutant embryos developing more rapidly than the most rapidly-developing wild-type embryos. In addition, the duration of embryonic development and the length of the defecation cycle of the mutants, but not of the wild-type, depends on the temperature at which their parents were raised. Finally, individual variations in the severity of distinct mutant phenotypes are correlated in a counter-intuitive way. For example, the animals with the shortest embryonic development have the longest defecation cycle and those with the longest embryonic development have the shortest defecation cycle. Most of the features affected by these mutations are believed to be controlled by biological clocks, and we therefore call the gene defined by these mutations clk-1, for "abnormal function of biological clocks".

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.22828
Date January 1994
CreatorsWong, Anne
ContributorsHekimi, Siegfried (advisor)
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageMaster of Science (Department of Biology.)
RightsAll items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
Relationalephsysno: 001462979, proquestno: MM05652, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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