Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder 80309-0347.
Nature. 363(6425):133-40, 1993 May 13.
Vulval differentiation in Caenorhabditis elegans is controlled by intercellular signalling mediated by a receptor tyrosine kinase and a ras gene product. The lin-45 gene encodes a homologue of the raf family of serine/threonine kinases and is necessary for vulval differentiation. The lin-45 raf gene product appears to act downstream of the ras protein in this pathway. A proto-oncogene-mediated signalling pathway may be a common feature of metazoan development.