| The PHB-d protein family is an evolutionarily ancient family of integral membrane proteins with members in all taxa. The eukaryotic PHB-d proteins descend from multiple prokaryotic ancestors. PHB-d proteins share several common molecular properties: oligomerization, detergent resistant membrane (DRM) association, and regulation of other proteins. PHB-d proteins are involved in a wide variety of biological processes. To better understand the biological roles of the PHB-d gene family and provide a starting point for analysis of their individual functions, we determined the expression patterns of all of the uncharacterized PHB-d genes in the nematode C. elegans using GFP reporters. We found that all eight of the proteins similar to mammalian stomatin are detectably expressed in neurons. The specificity of expression varies from 34 neuron types that express sto-4 to only one that expresses sto-3. A number of the expression patterns have functional implications. For instance, sto-2 is expressed in three neurons in the thermotaxis circuit and only a few other cell types so it may have a role in thermosensation. |
