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Review
. 2022 Dec 16;12(12):1889.
doi: 10.3390/biom12121889.

Unconventional Myosins from Caenorhabditis elegans as a Probe to Study Human Orthologues

Chloe A Johnson  1 , Ranya Behbehani  1 , Folma Buss  1
Affiliations
Review

Unconventional Myosins from Caenorhabditis elegans as a Probe to Study Human Orthologues

Chloe A Johnson et al. Biomolecules. .

Abstract

Unconventional myosins are a superfamily of actin-based motor proteins that perform a number of roles in fundamental cellular processes, including (but not limited to) intracellular trafficking, cell motility, endocytosis, exocytosis and cytokinesis. 40 myosins genes have been identified in humans, which belong to different 12 classes based on their domain structure and organisation. These genes are widely expressed in different tissues, and mutations leading to loss of function are associated with a wide variety of pathologies while over-expression often results in cancer. Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is a small, free-living, non-parasitic nematode. ~38% of the genome of C. elegans has predicted orthologues in the human genome, making it a valuable tool to study the function of human counterparts and human diseases. To date, 8 unconventional myosin genes have been identified in the nematode, from 6 different classes with high homology to human paralogues. The hum-1 and hum-5 (heavy chain of an unconventional myosin) genes encode myosin of class I, hum-2 of class V, hum-3 and hum-8 of class VI, hum-6 of class VII and hum-7 of class IX. The hum-4 gene encodes a high molecular mass myosin (307 kDa) that is one of the most highly divergent myosins and is a member of class XII. Mutations in many of the human orthologues are lethal, indicating their essential properties. However, a functional characterisation for many of these genes in C. elegans has not yet been performed. This article reviews the current knowledge of unconventional myosin genes in C. elegans and explores the potential use of the nematode to study the function and regulation of myosin motors to provide valuable insights into their role in diseases.

Keywords: model organism; motor protein; myosin; nematode.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) Table providing an overview of myosin genes and their properties found in C. elegans. 1 [24,25] 2 [25,26,27] 3 [28,29,30] 4 [30,31,32] 5 [24,25] 6 [33] 7 [25,27,34] 8 [25,34,35] 9 [36,37] 10 [38] 11 [26,34,39] 12 [34,40,41] 13 [26,34,42,43] 14 [24,34,42,44] 15 [34,40]. (B) Schematic of tissue distribution in C. elegans. Body wall muscle is shown in red, the nervous system in green, intestines in purple, gonads/reproductive system in blue and pharynx in teal. This figure has been created using https://app.biorender.com (accessed on 25 October 2022).
Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) Table providing an overview of myosin genes and their properties found in C. elegans. 1 [24,25] 2 [25,26,27] 3 [28,29,30] 4 [30,31,32] 5 [24,25] 6 [33] 7 [25,27,34] 8 [25,34,35] 9 [36,37] 10 [38] 11 [26,34,39] 12 [34,40,41] 13 [26,34,42,43] 14 [24,34,42,44] 15 [34,40]. (B) Schematic of tissue distribution in C. elegans. Body wall muscle is shown in red, the nervous system in green, intestines in purple, gonads/reproductive system in blue and pharynx in teal. This figure has been created using https://app.biorender.com (accessed on 25 October 2022).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic of the domain organisation of myosin isoforms found in C. elegans. All motors are comprised of a head region termed the motor domain, a neck region with variable number of IQ motifs, and highly variable tail regions. Abbreviations are as follows; TH1—tail homology 1; PH—pleckstrin homology; TH2—tail homology 2; SH3—Src homology 3; SAH—single alpha helical; MyTH—myosin tail homology; FERM—4.1 protein-ezrin-radixin-moesin.
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