ArticleThe Journal of cell biology2002
Alpha spectrin is essential for morphogenesis and body wall muscle formation in Caenorhabditis elegans.
Article in The Journal of cell biology, 2002. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 94 citations in OpenAlex.
- Apical spectrin organizes cortical actin filament bundles to pattern C. elegans cuticle ridges.PLoS genetics · 2026Article
- Review
- Apical spectrin organizes cortical actin filament bundles to patternbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Repeated extrinsic and anisotropic mechanical inputs promote C. elegans polarized adherens junction elongation.Developmental cell · 2025Article
- Critical role of alpha spectrin in DNA repair: the importance of μ-calpain and Fanconi anemia proteins.Experimental biology and medicine (Maywood, N.J.) · 2025Review
- Epithelial UNC-23 limits mechanical stress to maintain glia-neuron architecture in C. elegans.Developmental cell · 2024Article
- Cyclic muscle contractions reinforce the actomyosin motors and mediate the full elongation ofeLife · 2024Article
- Apical-basal polarity of the spectrin cytoskeleton in themicroPublication biology · 2023Article
- Plastin and spectrin cooperate to stabilize the actomyosin cortex during cytokinesis.Current biology : CB · 2021Article
- Force-mediated cellular anisotropy and plasticity dictate the elongation dynamics of embryos.Science advances · 2021Article
- Periodic subcellular structures undergo long-range synchronized reorganization duringJournal of cell science · 2020Article
- FLN-1/filamin is required to anchor the actomyosin cytoskeleton and for global organization of sub-cellular organelles in a contractile tissue.Cytoskeleton (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2020Article
- Game of Tissues: How the Epidermis ThronesJournal of developmental biology · 2020Review
- The functional importance of lamins, actin, myosin, spectrin and the LINC complex in DNA repair.Experimental biology and medicine (Maywood, N.J.) · 2019Review
- Spectrin-based membrane skeleton supports ciliogenesis.PLoS biology · 2019Article
- Physics of growing biological tissues: the complex cross-talk between cell activity, growth and resistance.Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2019Review
- Regulation of Actin Dynamics in theJournal of developmental biology · 2019Review
- Spectrin regulates cell contractility through production and maintenance of actin bundles in the Caenorhabditis elegans spermatheca.Molecular biology of the cell · 2018Article
- Spectrin and its interacting partners in nuclear structure and function.Experimental biology and medicine (Maywood, N.J.) · 2018Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A common feature of multicellular animals is the ubiquitous presence of the spectrin cytoskeleton. Although discovered over 30 yr ago, the function of spectrin in non-erythrocytes has remained elusive. We have found that the spc-1 gene encodes the only alpha spectrin gene in the Caenorhabditis elegans genome. During embryogenesis, alpha spectrin localizes to the cell membrane in most if not all cells, starting at the first cell stage. Interestingly, this localization is dependent on beta spectrin but not beta(Heavy) spectrin. Furthermore, analysis of spc-1 mutants indicates that beta spectrin requires alpha spectrin to be stably recruited to the cell membrane. Animals lacking functional alpha spectrin fail to complete embryonic elongation and die just after hatching. These mutant animals have defects in the organization of the hypodermal apical actin cytoskeleton that is required for elongation. In addition, we find that the process of elongation is required for the proper differentiation of the body wall muscle. Specifically, when compared with myofilaments in wild-type animals the myofilaments of the body wall muscle in mutant animals are abnormally oriented relative to the longitudinal axis of the embryo, and the body wall muscle cells do not undergo normal cell shape changes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.