A Study On The Function Of Cysteine Proteases In Caenorhabditis Elegans Embryogenesis

Cysteine Protease (CP) enzymatic activity may play important role on animal development, for instance, cathepsins B, L and Z like cysteine proteases family play an essential role in early embryogenesis and normal growth in Caenorhabditis elegans.C. elegans embryogenesis is a powerful in vivo model to study gene function because of its germline is highly sensitive to RNAi, facilitating the detection of genes with essential functions in the embryo. In this study, RNA interference (RNAi) was used as a reverse genetic technique to knock down Cathepsin L, B and Z-like cysteine proteases in C. elegans as a genetic model animal to demonstrate the function of these enzymes in embryogenesis. Cpl-1, cpr-1and cpz-1RNAi, lead to embryonic lethal to F1progeny, as well as cpz-1RNAi leads to defects in cuticle region indicating the role of cpz-1in molting. Furthermore, cpl-1RNAi, leads to different phenotypic traits such as embryonic lethal, sterile and internal hatching for L1larvae indicating that cpl-1has multi-biological functions.Cysteine proteases in C. elegans and other Eukaryotic organisms are similar, so the results of this study may explain the function of Cathepsin L, B and Z-like cysteine proteases in other eukaryotic organisms which have homologous and orthologous to cpl-1, cpr-1and cpz-1genes in C. elegans.