Specialized germline P-bodies are required to specify germ cell fate in C. elegans embryos

ABSTRACT In animals with germ plasm, specification of the germline involves “germ granules”, cytoplasmic condensates that enrich maternal transcripts in the germline founder cells. In C. elegans embryos, P granules enrich maternal transcripts, but surprisingly P granules are not essential for germ cell fate specification. Here we describe a second condensate in the C. elegans germ plasm. Like canonical P-bodies found in somatic cells, “germline P-bodies” contain regulators of mRNA decapping and deadenylation and, in addition, the intrinsically-disordered proteins MEG-1 and MEG-2 and the TIS11-family RNA-binding protein POS-1. Embryos lacking meg-1 and meg-2 do not stabilize P-body components, miss-regulate POS-1 targets, miss-specify the germline founder cell, and do not develop a germline. Our findings suggest that specification of the germ line involves at least two distinct condensates that independently enrich and regulate maternal mRNAs in the germline founder cells.