Deletion of the RGD motif in LON-2/glypican is associated with morphological abnormalities

The lon-2 gene in Caenorhabditis elegans encodes a heparan sulfate proteoglycan family glypican that negatively regulates the BMP signaling pathway responsible for controlling body length. LON-2 contains multiple functional domains, including an RGD (Arg-Gly-Asp) motif at amino acid number from 348 to 350. A novel mutant allele of lon-2 was investigated in this study. In this mutant allele, lon-2(kq348ΔRGD), the RGD motif at position 348 was deleted. Another pre-existing mutant allele, lon-2(e678), contains a ~9kb deletion and lacks most of the genomic coding sequence. The lon-2(e678) line was used as a reference allele. The novel mutant line was significantly shorter than wild-type animals, suggesting that removal of the RGD motif in LON-2 may improve its ability to inhibit BMP signaling.