An in vivo toolkit to visualize endogenous LAG-2/Delta and LIN-12/Notch signaling in C. elegans

Notch/Delta signaling regulates numerous cell-cell interactions that occur during development, homeostasis, and in disease states. In many cases, the Notch/Delta pathway mediates lateral inhibition between cells to specify alternative fates. Here, we provide new tools for use in C. elegans to investigate feedback between the Notch receptor LIN-12 and the ligand LAG-2 (Delta) in vivo . We report new, endogenously tagged strains to visualize LAG-2 protein and lag-2 transcription, which we combined with endogenously tagged LIN-12 to visualize Notch and Delta dynamics over the course of a stochastic Notch-mediated cell fate decision. To validate these tools in a functional context, we demonstrated that our endogenous lag-2 transcriptional reporter was expressed in ectopic anchor and primary vulval precursor cells after auxin-mediated depletion of LIN-12. This toolkit provides new reagents for the C. elegans research community to further investigate Notch/Delta signaling mechanisms and functions for this pathway in vivo .