| dc.description.abstract | Male Caenorhabditis elegans undergo a radical remodeling of their anal depressor during late larval stage 4. In both hermaphrodites and males, the larval anal depressor primarily functions as a defecation behavior. However, the muscle’s sarcomere reorganizes itself to facilitate copulation only in the adult males (Chen and René García 2015). In succinate dehydrogenase (sdha-1) mutants, the post embryonic sex muscle has been found to mature inappropriately; this is especially seen in males. In addition to the abnormal sex muscles, we discovered that the sex-common anal depressor muscle also remodels inappropriately in the male. The cause of the abnormal development of these muscles remains unknown; however our findings has led us to hypothesize that the sdha-1 encoded enzyme is required for cell-cell communication between the developing anal depressor and its neighboring signaling partners. To address which cells are involved in signaling for the developmental muscle remodeling to take place, further study of the sdha-1 mutation is needed to determine how it may be affecting the Wnt/ β-Catenin Signaling Pathway transduction. In addition, we hope to uncover which cell signals are initiating the abnormal sculpting of the anal depressor during development. | en |
