Characterization of the mel-26, the post-meiotic inhibitor of MEI-1/MEI-2 microtubule severing activity in caenorhabditis elegans

Abstract

In the Caenorhabditis elegans embryo, the meiotic and mitotic spindles form within thirty minutes of one another in the same cytoplasm; yet these two spindles are very different in size and structure. Genes have been identified that have an essential role in oocyte meiotic and early mitotic spindle formation. It was previously determined that mei-1 and mei-2 are essential for meiosis and that mel-26 is the post-meiotic inhibitor of mei-1 and mei-2. mei-1 and mei-2 encode a microtubule severing activity. This thesis focuses on the development of an anti-MEL-26 antibody, to determine where and when MEL-26 is localized in the early embryo and to discover more about its interaction with MEI-1/MEI-2. This work contributed to the identification of MEL-26 as a component of a novel E3 ubiquitin ligase complex involved in targeting MEI-1 for ubiquitin-mediated degradation following meiosis.