Cloning, Phenotypic, and Experimental Analysis of Pat-4: The Caenorhabditis Elegans Homologue of Integrin -Linked Kinase

126 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2004.The third chapter describes experimental analysis of pat-4 during the morphogenesis of the excretory canal cell. By completely removing pat-4 expression from the excretory cell, I demonstrate that pat-4 is essential for the active outgrowth and complete extension of the excretory canal processes during embryogenesis and early larval development. Interestingly, "kinase-dead" and PH domain-disrupted forms of PAT-4/ILK support initial canal outgrowth. However, these canals frequently fail to fully extend during active canal outgrowth resulting in shortened, misshaped mature canals. These results identify a new developmental function for PAT-4/ILK in C. elegans and directly establish a role for ILK during the dynamic process of cellular morphogenesis in vivo .U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD