I am trying to write out my research proposal about a project in C.elegans. There are multiple mutants of the factor that I want to study, each with different mutations. I know that a mutation that abolishes the promoter and transcription start site of the gene will most likely be a null mutant. But what about strains that have internal deletions? For example, if I were to generate mutants missing specific exons such that there was a predicted ORF for the gene product, is this transcript automatically targeted for nonsense mediated decay? I was told that this was a C.elegans specific process (deletion mutants are often protein null?), but I am having trouble finding this information.
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$\begingroup$ I would assume that it may depend on the target in question. If the exon you remove causes errors in splicing of the surrounding introns, degradation will be the likely fate for the transcribed RNA. If the introns are correctly spliced, I would assume that you may end up with a deletion variant of a protein. Whether the deletion variant is functional or not will likely depend on which exon you remove. $\endgroup$– Jeppe NielsenJul 18, 2017 at 23:05
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