PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Shaohe Wang
AU  - Ngang Heok Tang
AU  - Pablo Lara-Gonzalez
AU  - Bram Prevo
AU  - Dhanya K. Cheerambathur
AU  - Andrew D. Chisholm
AU  - Arshad Desai
AU  - Karen Oegema
TI  - A toolkit for tissue-specific protein degradation in <em>C. elegans</em>
AID  - 10.1101/104398
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 104398
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/01/30/104398.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/01/30/104398.full
AB  - Proteins essential for embryo production, cell division, and early embryonic events are frequently re-utilized later in embryogenesis, during organismal development, or in the adult. Examining protein function across these different biological contexts requires tissue-specific perturbation. Here, we describe a method that utilizes expression of a fusion between a GFP-targeting nanobody and SOCS-box containing ubiquitin ligase adaptor to target GFP tagged proteins for degradation. When combined with endogenous locus GFP tagging by CRISPR-Cas9 or rescue of a null mutant with a GFP fusion, this approach enables routine and efficient tissue-specific protein ablation. We show that this approach works in multiple tissues—the epidermis, intestine, body wall muscle, sensory neurons, and touch neurons—where it recapitulates expected loss-of-function mutant phenotypes. The transgene toolkit and the strain set described here will complement existing approaches to enable routine analysis of the tissue-specific roles of C. elegans proteins.