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Mutations in the gene ced-4 block almost all of the programmed cell deaths that
normally occur during Caenorhabditis elegans development. We have cloned the
ced-4 gene using a ced-4 mutation caused by the insertion of the transposon Tc4.
When microinjected into a ced-4 animal, a 4.4 kb DNA fragment derived from the
wild-type strain and corresponding to the region of the Tc4 insertion in the
mutant ced-4(n1416) rescues the Ced-4 mutant phenotype. The ced-4 gene encodes a
2.2 kb RNA transcript. This mRNA is expressed primarily during embryogenesis,
when most programmed cell deaths occur. The Ced-4 protein, as deduced from cDNA
and genomic DNA clones, is 549 amino acids in length. Two regions of the
putative Ced-4 protein product show some similarity to known calcium-binding
domains.
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