A null allele in the wdfy-3 selective autophagy gene of C. elegans

The C. elegans WDFY-3 protein is important for cargo selection during selective autophagy and for regulating axon termination. The C-terminal region of WDFY-3 contains BEACH, WD repeats, and FYVE-like domains, all of which are required for selective autophagy. WDFY-3 also contains a large N-terminal region that is relatively uncharacterized. Currently, wdfy-3(ok912) is the only mutant allele that has been characterized for this gene. This allele features a small deletion that is predicted to disrupt the C-terminal region of the protein. Here, we used CRISPR Cas9 to produce a new wdfy-3(cue30) allele that is a near complete deletion of the coding region. We report that, unlike the existing wdfy-3(ok912) allele, this new wdfy-3(cue30) null allele causes a weak overextension phenotype in the PLM axon. Like the existing wdfy-3(ok912) allele, the new wdfy-3(cue30) null allele can suppress PLM axon termination defects caused by an fsn-1 null allele. Creating and characterizing new wdfy-3 alleles will increase our understanding of this gene and could help elucidate more of the gene's conserved functions.