WormMine: AnatomyTerm WBbt:0005337

• Definition: That portion of the male reproductive tract, through which sperm are delivered to the proctodeum and then the cloaca in the tail. Thus that portion which is distal to the testis, made of a total of 30 cells.
• Name: vas deferens
• Primary Identifier: WBbt:0005337
• Synonym: gon_male_vdef

2 Children

Definition	Name	Synonym	Primary Identifier
cell of vas deferens of male gonad.	ves deferens cell	gon male vdef	WBbt:0008202
An anatomical region of the male vas deferens that is adjacent to the seminal vesicle.	vas deferens valve region		WBbt:0008440

1 Expression Clusters

Regulated By Treatment	Description	Algorithm	Primary Identifier
	Transcripts expressed in male vas deferens, according to RNA tomography.	RNA tomography	WBPaper00055648:male-vas-deferens_expressed

23 Expression Patterns

• Primary Identifier: Expr4773
• Pattern: Expressed in intestine, excretory cell, seminal vesicle/vas deferens.

• Primary Identifier: Expr3278
• Pattern: In the embryo, the upstream promoter (ten-1a) is most active in the descendants of the C and EMS blastomers. During postembryonic development, GFP expression was detected in the pharynx, gut, coelomocytes, posterior body wall muscles, vulva muscles in hermaphrodites, and diagonal muscles in males. The ten-1a promoter is also active in some hypodermal cells including the hyp-11 cell, hypodermal seam cells, and rectal hypodermis. In the somatic gonad, it is active throughout its development starting with z1 and z4 cells in the embryo. During gonad development, it is expressed in the distal tip cells and the linker cell in males, in gonad and spermatheca sheath cells, and the utse cells of the uterus. In males, ten-1a is active in the vas deferens and spicule socket cells. Furthermore, GFP expression in DVB neurons and a few ring interneurons could be detected.

• Primary Identifier: Expr8801
• Remark: Picture: Fig 2.
• Pattern: The presence of LET-721::GFP was observed during all developmental stages: embryo, larvae and adult. The LET-721::GFP was also expressed in dauer larvae, an alternate larval stage C. elegans enter under stress conditions. Observation of the spatial expression pattern revealed that LET-721 is found in a many of tissues including: pharynx, body wall muscle, hypoderm, intestine and somatic gonad. In addition to these tissues, sex-specific expression was observed in hermaphrodites, which express LET-721::GFP in the spermatheca, while males express LET-721 in the vas deferens.
• Subcellular Localization: Subcellular localization of LET-721::GFP is not uniformly dispersed throughout each tissue, rather, it is distributed in an intracellular punctate pattern of reporter expression, indicating mitochondrial localization of the LET-721::GFP construct. To verify that the punctate pattern of expression was a consequence of mitochondrial localization, a GFP reporter strain lacking the mitochondrial localization sequence of LET-721 was examined. This transgenic strain contained a promoter::GFP fusion construct, using the same 5 gene-upstream non-coding region as the previous protein fusion (1,343 bp sequence upstream from the start codon of let-721), but lacking the protein coding sequence for let-721. The let-721-promoter::GFP (BC10569) construct drove expression of GFP in the same tissue types as the translational reporter fusion (pharynx, intestines, muscle, hypoderm, unassigned neurons and spermatheca). However, the let-721-promoter::GFP strain did not exhibit the punctate expression associated with mitochondrial localization, but rather a uniform distribution of fluorescence throughout cells with a concentration of signal localizing to the nucleus due to the influence of the 5' nuclear localization sequence. Along with similar intracellular patterns observed by another group's study of a different mitochondrial protein, the punctate pattern of expression is likely a consequence of the LET-721::GFP protein fusion localizing to the mitochondria.

• Primary Identifier: Expr13037
• Pattern: F59B2.12 is expressed in the vas deferens in vesicular structures.

• Primary Identifier: Expr12671
• Pattern: In males, PLC-3 was previously reported to be expressed in the seminal vesicle valve cell and the vas deferens. A larger upstream promoter region - 4.4 kb plc-3 promoter construct- also expressed in the ALA neuron, the male retractor muscles, and the ventral protractor muscles.

• Primary Identifier: Expr3363
• Remark: Reporter gene fusion type not specified.
• Pattern: Expressed in male vas deferens.

• Primary Identifier: Expr3364
• Remark: Reporter gene fusion type not specified.
• Pattern: Expressed in male seminal vesicle and vas deferens.

• Primary Identifier: Expr12420
• Pattern: K09C8.2::GFP labels the male seminal vesicle and vas deferens, but it is not expressed in wild-type hermaphrodite gonads.

• Primary Identifier: Expr8206
• Remark: Picture: Figure 3c, Supplementary Movie 1.
• Pattern: Strong expression of GFP was observed in 12 cells of the vas deferens. Expression commences during the fourth larval stage, before the adult moult. In adult males, the cuboidal GFP-expressing cells are arranged in two rows. There is left - right asymmetry in the location of the GFP-expressing cells and in the intensity of their expression. Although there seems to be variation among individuals, typically five of the cells are on the right-hand side of the midline, whereas seven are on the left-hand side of the midline; furthermore, three posterior cells express a lower level of GFP, and two of these low-level cells are on the left-hand side.

• Primary Identifier: Expr3026
• Pattern: To determine the cellular expression pattern of srf-3, constructs were generated, which fused GFP to the N terminus of SRF-3 and {beta}-galactosidase to the C terminus. Animals transgenic for either of these reporters expressed the fusion genes exclusively in the pharyngeal cells g1 and g2, the lateral seam cells, and the spermatheca. Expression was first visible in the seam cells of late embryos, where it persisted up to the fourth larval stage, but disappeared in adult animals. Expression in the glandular cells g1 and g2 started in L1 and remained visible until adulthood. In sexually mature hermaphrodites, expression was also observed in the spermatheca. In males, a similar pattern of expression was seen in g1, g2, and seam cells. In adult males, a strong expression signal was visible in the vas deferens.
• Subcellular Localization: Intracellular localization of the GFP signal was in a perinuclear staining pattern, consistent with an ER or Golgi apparatus localization of SRF-3.

• Primary Identifier: Expr12670
• Pattern: egl-8 is expressed in the vas deferens, spicule protractor muscles, diagonal muscles and a male-specific neuron that is probably CP8 or CP9 and is also widely expressed in the nervous system, as expected from previous work (Lackner et al., 1999; Miller et al., 1999).

• Primary Identifier: Expr9862
• Pattern: The primary site of try-5 expression was in the male somatic gonad, in particular within tissues involved in storing sperm and tissues through which sperm pass during transfer to a hermaphrodite. Starting at the L4 larval stage, when sperm production initiates, we observed Ptry-5::GFP::H2B expression in several regions of the male gonad: the seminal vesicle (up to seven of the twenty-three total cells in this tissue), the valve region (four cells), and the twelve cuboidal cells of the vas deferens. This overall pattern persisted into adulthood until at least 72 hr post L4; highest expression levels were present consistently in the valve region. We observed no expression in the hermaphrodite gonad, so gonadal expression of try-5 is sexually dimorphic. However, we also observed low levels of expression in a few cells within the head and tail of both males and hermaphrodites.

• Primary Identifier: Expr3702
• Pattern: Expression in male-specific structures is directed by all three promoters. Promoter pA directs expression in the spicule protractor muscles of the proctodeum and in a single male-specific neuron that is likely to be CP8 or CP9. Promoter pB directs expression in the spicule retractor muscles, gubernaculum retractor muscles, posterior oblique muscles, diagonal muscles, and the vas deferens. Promoter pC also directs expression in the vas deferens, as well as the seminal vesicle and the valve that separates the seminal vesicle and vas deferens. Thus itr-1 is expressed widely in the sex-associated muscles and somatic gonad of males.

• Primary Identifier: Expr334
• Remark: Data modified according to Shawn Lockery's expression pattern curations.
• Pattern: In adult hermaphrodites, strong staining were observed in three synaptic rich structures: nerve ring, ventral cord and dorsal cord processes, sites of neuromuscular junctions onto body wall muscles. Stained majority of the pharyngeal nervous system processes. Less intensive staining of the ventral and dorsal sublateral processes and several processes directed anteriorly from the nerve ring. Staining was often restricted to punctate patches occuring at frequent intervals. In adult males, strong immunostaining was observed in the posterior region of the ventral nerve cord. DVB is the only stained neuronal cell body. Staining also observed in several non-neuronal secretory cells. Four cells in the vulva region (uv1 cells). The vas deferens of adult males, about 20 large circular structures, not surround nuclei, suggesting they were cytoplasmic structures, only observed in adult males. Faint staining in spermathecea of adult hermaphrodites.

• Primary Identifier: Expr12668
• Pattern: plc-4 (encoding PLC-delta) is expressed in the vas deferens.

• Primary Identifier: Expr14567
• Pattern: We picked genes fipr-17, clec-137, and C09G12.5 for validation and found that all were specifically expressed in the vas deferens.

• Primary Identifier: Expr12669
• Pattern: plc-3 (encoding PLC-gamma) is expressed in the vas deferens and in the valve cell that separates the seminal vesicle and vas deferens.

• Primary Identifier: Expr14568
• Pattern: We picked genes fipr-17, clec-137, and C09G12.5 for validation and found that all were specifically expressed in the vas deferens.

• Primary Identifier: Expr9863
• Pattern: In worms carrying the Ptry-5::TRY-5::GFP reporter, the TRY-5::GFP fusion protein exhibited a localization pattern consistent with secretion from the vas deferens. Within the valve and cuboidal cells, TRY-5::GFP was localized to globular foci. In L4 larvae, most globules aligned with the apical domain that lines the developing sperm channel. In mature adults, very large globules were present that tended to cluster apically, and additional small globules were present throughout the cytoplasm. We sometimes observed TRY-5::GFP within the lumen of the seminal vesicle, likely as a result of release from the adjacent, highly-expressing valve cells.

• Primary Identifier: Expr14569
• Pattern: We picked genes fipr-17, clec-137, and C09G12.5 for validation and found that all were specifically expressed in the vas deferens.

• Primary Identifier: Expr13033
• Pattern: clec-207 is expressed in the male-specific gonadal structure called vas deferens.

• Primary Identifier: Expr13034
• Pattern: clec-219 is expressed in the male-specific gonadal structure called vas deferens.

• Primary Identifier: Marker121
• Pattern: Marker for vas deferens.

0 Life Stages

2 Parents

Definition	Name	Synonym	Primary Identifier
gonad of a male animal, produces sperm.	male gonad		WBbt:0006794
entity of anatomical origin that is either entirely acellular or is a collection of cells and acellular parts.	Anatomy	anatomical structure	WBbt:0005766