Question

What kind of experiment can be done in order to figure out whether the gene is autonomous or non-autonomous?
Please tell the process and the principle of the experiment .

Answer 1

An automous gene produces a genetic trait which is expressed only in geneotypically mutant cells of that particular trait. These gene products don't interfere in cell to cell interactions.

A non autonomous trait mutant genotypic cells cause other cells to exhibit the mutant phenotype. Non-autonomous gene product is usually a signalling molecule which takes part in cell - cell signalling.

Mosaic analysis is used to determine whether a gene is autonomous or not in the body of the organism.It has two parts

1) A patch of mutant cells/ lineage is produced by using various techniques in a wild type (non mutant ) animal.

For this various techniques can be used such as mitotically unstable free duplication of chromosomes in C.elegans. Using Chimeras, cre-lox recombination or introduction of homozygous ipscs in mouse.

2) A marker for autonomous cell is generated to identify between mutated and wild type cells.

In C.elegans certains mutations affect the size of the nucleolus which can be identified using fluorescent microscopy by specific staining of the nucleolus.

Nowadays autonomous and non autonomous genes are identified using cell lines too. Mutated cell types of a particular gene are cultured with those of wild types. Reporter genes can be used to identify the mutated versions of the genes. Techniques like western blotting, PCR etc can be used to know whether the gene product exhibits some change in the nearby cells.