Integrative role of the DBL-1/BMP signaling pathway with BLMP-1/BLIMP1 in Caenorhabditis elegans development

Animals use multiple signaling pathways for cell-to-cell communication for proper development. One signaling pathway is defined by its ligand family of bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP). In the roundworm C. elegans, BMP member DBL-1 has a well-defined, conserved pathway. The DBL-1 signaling pathway is involved in a spectrum of traits, including body size, brood size, and others. How does this BMP pathway control target gene expression? Previous studies in C. elegans show that transcriptional regulator BLMP-1 affects a similar array of traits as DBL-1. However, the relationship between DBL- 1 and BLMP-1 is not studied. We discovered that DBL-1 and DBL-1 signaling are affected by loss of BLMP-1. We also found that DBL-1 negatively regulates blmp-1 expression in a stage-specific manner. Additionally, ChIP-seq, RNA-seq, and co-immunoprecipitation analyses suggest that the DBL-1 pathway and BLMP-1 act together to control expression of some common target genes, further linking these conserved molecular mechanisms during development.