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Vol. 14, Issue 7, 2630-2644, July 2003
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Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1B1
Submitted November 8, 2002;
Revised March 13, 2003;
Accepted March 18, 2003
Monitoring Editor: Daniel Goodenough
The innexins represent a highly conserved protein family, the members of which make up the structural components of gap junctions in invertebrates. We have isolated and characterized a Caenorhabditis elegans gene inx-6 that encodes a new member of the innexin family required for the electrical coupling of pharyngeal muscles. inx-6(rr5) mutants complete embryogenesis without detectable abnormalities at restrictive temperature but fail to initiate postembryonic development after hatching. inx-6 is expressed in the pharynx at all larval stages, and an INX-6::GFP fusion protein showed a punctate expression pattern characteristic of gap junction proteins localized to plasma membrane plaques. Video recording and electropharyngeograms revealed that in inx-6(rr5) mutants the anterior pharyngeal (procorpus) muscles were electrically coupled to a lesser degree than the posterior metacorpus muscles, which caused a premature relaxation in the anterior pharynx and interfered with feeding. Dye-coupling experiments indicate that the gap junctions that link the procorpus to the metacorpus are functionally compromised in inx-6(rr5) mutants. We also show that another C. elegans innexin, EAT-5, can partially substitute for INX-6 function in vivo, underscoring their likely analogous function.
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: richard.roy{at}mcgill.ca.
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