Establishment of bilateral asymmetry through selective segregatin of sister chromatids

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24770204
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Developmental biology
• Research Institution: Nagoya University
• Principal Investigator: NAKANO Shunji 名古屋大学, 理学(系)研究科(研究院), 助教 (60608529)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 左右非対称性

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Bilateral asymmetry is a prevalent feature of the nervous system of many animals and is thought to play an important role in the lateralized brain function. Abnormality in brain asymmetry is implicated in several neuropathology. Identification of the molecular mechanism that establish left-right asymmetry is thus a fundamental problem in developmental biology, neurobiology and neuropathology.
The nervous system of C. elegans displays left-right asymmetry. We have previously isolated mutants in which a neuronal left-right asymmetry is lost. In this study, we identified a novel gene required for the establishment of neuronal asymmetry and found that an evolutionarily conserved protein kinase is required to generate a bilateral asymmetry. This protein kinase was previously shown to be important for chromosome segregation. These observations suggested that regulation of chromosome segregation might be involved in the generation of bilateral asymmetry in the C. elegans nervous system.

Free Research Field

遺伝学