Disease relevance of tra-3

• An amber allele of tra-3 results in masculinization of XX animals with accompanying sterility [1].

High impact information on tra-3

• The Caenorhabditis elegans tra-3 gene promotes female development in XX hermaphrodites and encodes an atypical calpain regulatory protease lacking calcium-binding EF hands [2].
• Genetic analysis of tra-3 has suggested that its product may act as a potentiator of another sex determination gene, tra-2 [3].
• The Caenorhabditis elegans sex determination gene tra-3 is required for the correct sexual development of the soma and germ line in hermaphrodites, while being fully dispensable in males [3].
• In order to evaluate the function of the individual members of this multigene family, we sought to recover amber (UAG)-suppressing mutations from reversion experiments with animals carrying amber mutations in a nervous system-affecting gene (unc-13) or a sex-determining gene (tra-3) [4].
• All alleles of tra-1 and tra-2 are recessive; the one known allele of tra-3 is both recessive and maternal in effect [5].

Biological context of tra-3

• Suppression was assayed by monitoring the reversal of a mutant tra-3 phenotype among individuals transformed with the cloned Drosophila suppressor gene [1].

Other interactions of tra-3

• The tra-3 sex determination gene of Caenorhabditis elegans encodes a member of the calpain regulatory protease family [3].

References