Report Cell-Nonautonomous Regulation of C. elegans Germ Cell Death by kri-1

Abstract

Summary Programmed cell death (or apoptosis) is an evolutionarily conserved, genetically controlled suicide mechanism for cells that, when deregulated, can lead to developmental defects, cancers, and degenerative diseases Results and Discussion In an RNA interference (RNAi) screen unrelated to apoptosis, we serendipitously uncovered a cep-1/p53-interacting gene, kri-1, the ortholog of human KRIT1/CCM1, which is frequently mutated in the neurovascular disease cerebral cavernous malformation Given that kri-1 is required to promote germ cell death in response to DNA damage, we were interested to know at which step in the pathway it might be functioning