PAG-3, a Zn-finger transcription factor, determines neuroblast fate in C. elegans

During Caenorhabditis elegans development, the patterns of cell divisions, cell fates and programmed cell deaths are reproducible from animal to animal. In a search for mutants with abnormal patterns of programmed cell deaths in the ventral nerve cord, we identified mutations in the gene pag-3, which encodes a zinc-finger transcription factor similar to the mammalian Gfi-1 and Drosophila Senseless proteins. In pag-3 mutants, specific neuroblasts express the pattern of divisions normally associated with their mother cells, producing with each reiteration an abnormal anterior daughter neuroblast and an extra posterior daughter cell that either terminally differentiates or undergoes programmed cell death, which accounts for the extra cell corpses seen in pag-3 mutants. In addition, some neurons do not adopt their normal fates in pag-3 mutants. The phenotype of pag-3 mutants and the expression pattern of the PAG-3 protein suggest that in some lineages pag-3 couples the determination of neuroblast cell fate to subsequent neuronal differentiation. We propose that pag-3 counterparts in other organisms determine blast cell identity and for this reason may lead to cell lineage defects and cell proliferation when mutated.