{"doi":"10.1093/genetics/iyaf051","title":"Mediator-29 limits <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i> fecundity","abstract":"Mediator is an evolutionarily conserved multiprotein complex that acts as a critical coregulator of RNA polymerase II-mediated transcription. While core Mediator components are broadly required for transcription, others govern specific regulatory modules and signaling pathways. Here, we investigated the function of MDT-29/MED29 in the Caenorhabditis elegans germ line. We found that endogenously tagged MDT-29 is ubiquitously expressed and concentrated in discrete foci within germ cell nuclei. Functionally, depleting MDT-29 in the germ line during larval development boosted fecundity. We determined that the increase in progeny production was likely caused by a combination of an expanded germline stem cell pool and decreased germ cell apoptosis. Thus, MDT-29 may act to optimize specific gene expression programs to control distinct germ cell behaviors, providing flexibility to progeny production in certain environments.","journal":"Genetics","year":2025,"id":563268,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9615,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1466072,"name":"Christopher Tran","orcid":"0009-0002-2826-6137","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":783527,"name":"Wei Cao","orcid":"0000-0001-8763-9226","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":567273,"name":"Roger Pocock","orcid":"0000-0002-5515-3608","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":334657,"name":"Qi Fan","orcid":"0000-0003-3423-5601","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":40,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:56:13.374766Z","pmid":"40120129","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}