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Updated: Aug 17, 2026

Using Caenorhabditis elegans to Screen for Tissue-Specific Chaperone Interactions
Published on: June 7, 2020
Compensatory regulation among ER chaperones in C. elegans
Wadim J Kapulkin1, Vadim Kapulkin, Brian G Hiester
1Institute for Behavioral Genetics, Campus Box 447, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
Abstract:
We have identified a particularly clear case of compensatory transcriptional regulation among ER chaperones in Caenorhabditis elegans using a GFP reporter transgene that is under the control of the promoter of hsp-4, a C. elegans homolog of GRP-78/BiP. Knockdown by RNA interference of 9 known or predicted ER chaperones induced hsp-4 upregulation via the ire-1/xbp-1 signaling cascade employed in the unfolded protein response. We show that this compensatory regulation is specific for ER chaperones, not dependent on RNA interference, and required for maintaining viability in worms containing a deletion of the hsp-3 gene.
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