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Originally published In Press as doi:10.1074/jbc.M109034200 on November 8, 2001
J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 277, Issue 3, 2202-2206, January 18, 2002
Ubiquinone Is Necessary for Caenorhabditis elegans
Development at Mitochondrial and Non-mitochondrial Sites*
Abdelmadjid K.
Hihi §,
Yuan
Gao§, and
Siegfried
Hekimi¶
From the Department of Biology, McGill University,
Montréal, Québec H3A 1B1, Canada
Ubiquinone (UQ) is a lipid co-factor that is
involved in numerous enzymatic processes and is present in most
cellular membranes. In particular, UQ is a crucial electron carrier in
the mitochondrial respiratory chain. Recently, it was shown that
clk-1 mutants of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis
elegans do not synthesize UQ9 but instead accumulate
demethoxyubiquinone (DMQ9), a biosynthetic precursor of
UQ9 (the subscript refers to the length of the isoprenoid side chain). DMQ9 is capable of carrying out the function
of UQ9 in the respiratory chain, as demonstrated by the
functional competence of mitochondria isolated from clk-1
mutants, and the ability of DMQ9 to act as a co-factor for
respiratory enzymes in vitro. However, despite the presence
of functional mitochondria, clk-1 mutant worms fail to
complete development when feeding on bacteria that do not produce
UQ8. Here we show that clk-1 mutants cannot
grow on bacteria producing only DMQ8 and that worm
coq-3 mutants, which produce neither UQ9 nor
DMQ9, arrest development even on bacteria producing
UQ8. These results indicate that UQ is required for nematode development at mitochondrial and non-mitochondrial sites and
that DMQ cannot functionally replace UQ at those non-mitochondrial sites.
*
The costs of publication of this
article were defrayed in part by the
payment of page charges. The article
must therefore be hereby marked
"advertisement" in
accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section
1734 solely to indicate this fact.
Fellow of the Swiss National Foundation.
§
These two authors contributed equally to the work presented.
¶
Canadian Institute of Health Research Scientist. To whom
correspondence should be addressed: Dept. of Biology, McGill
University, 1205 Ave. Docteur Penfield, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1B1,
Canada. Tel.: 514-398-6440; Fax: 514-398-1674; E-mail:
Siegfried.Hekimi@McGill.ca.
Copyright © 2002 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

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