Summary
Gene ace-1 encodes acetylcholinesterase class A [Johnson and Russell, 1983], and produces about half of the acetylcholinesterase activity. The C-terminal end of ACE-1 is homologous to the C terminus of T subunits of vertebrate AChEs. ACE-1 oligomerizes into amphiphilic tetramers and is secreted [Arpagaus et al, 1994; Combes et al, 2000]. It is partly redundant functionnally with ace-2: the double mutant ace-1 ace-2 has uncoordinated locomotion, moving slowly forward and hypercontracted backward [Kolson and Russell, 1985]. Absence of the three classes A B C of acetylcholinesterases together, in the ace-1 ace-2 ace-3 triple mutant, leads to paralysis and late embryonic/early larval lethality [Johnson et al, 1988]. ace-1 is expressed at all stages of development in muscles and some nerve cells including motoneurons, but as seen from mosaic analysis, it is the muscular expression of ace-1 that is primarily required for locomotor function [Herman and Kari, 1985][Wormbase] ace-1 encodes a class A acetylcholinesterase that functions redundantly with ACE-2 with respect to total class A acetylcholinesterase activity, and that genetically interacts with ace-2 and ace-3; ace-1 is expressed in the body wall muscle, sphincter muscle, head neurons, a few pharyngeal muscle cells, and the diagonal and spicule muscles of the male.
Wormbase predicts one model, but Caenorhabditis elegans cDNA sequences in GenBank, filtered against clone rearrangements, coaligned on the genome and clustered in a minimal non-redundant way by the manually supervised AceView program, support at least 2 spliced variants.

AceView summary
Expression: According to AceView, this gene is well expressed, 0.7 times the average gene in this release, at all stages of development [Kohara cDNAs]. The sequence of this gene is defined by 9 cDNA clones. We annotate structural defects or features in one cDNA clone.
Alternative mRNA variants and regulation: The gene contains 9 distinct gt-ag introns. Transcription produces 2 alternatively spliced mRNAs. The mRNAs appear to differ by by overlapping exons with different boundaries.
Protein coding potential: The 2 spliced mRNAs putatively encode good proteins, altogether 2 different isoforms (1 complete, 1 COOH complete, 1 partial), some containing Carboxylesterase, type B domain [Pfam]; the complete protein appears to be secreted. Efficacy of translation may be reduced by the presence of a shorter translated product (uORF) initiating at an AUG upstream of the main open reading frame (in variant a).
Function: There are 23 articles specifically referring to this gene in PubMed. In addition we point below to 20 abstracts. This gene is associated to a phenotype (abnormal ACEtylcholinesterase). Proteins are expected to localize in extracellular space.

Please quote: AceView: a comprehensive cDNA-supported gene and transcripts annotation, Genome Biology 2006, 7(Suppl 1):S12

Map: This gene ace-1 maps on chomosome X at position +24.00 (measured by recombination), +22.88 (interpolated). In AceView, it covers 6.57 kb, from 16367149 to 16373715 (WS190), on the direct strand.
Links to: WormBase, NextDB, RNAiDB.
Other names: The gene is also known in Wormgenes/AceView by its positional name XQ987, in Wormbase by its cosmid.number name W09B12.1, in NextDB, the Nematode expression pattern database, as CEYK3455.

The closest human genes, according to BlastP, are the AceView genes ACHE (e= 10^-123), BCHE (e= 10^-120).
The closest mouse genes, according to BlastP, are the AceView genes Acheand2700038N03Rik (e= 10^-125), Bche (e= 10^-119).
The closest A.thaliana genes, according to BlastP, are the AceView genes AT3G02410 (e=10^-05), ATPCME (e=2 10^-04), AT2G03550 (e=3 10^-04)

Alternative mRNAs are shown aligned from 5' to 3' on a virtual genome where introns have been shrunk to a minimal length. Exon size is proportional to length, intron height reflects the number of cDNA clones supporting each intron. Superimposed introns of the same color are identical, of different colors are different.
Mouse over the ending of each transcript gives tissues from which the supporting cDNAs were extracted. Click on any transcript to open the specific mRNA page, to see the exact cDNA clone support and eventual SNPs and to get details on tissues, sequences, mRNA and protein annotations. Details on tissue of origin for each intron and exon is available from the intron and exons table. Good predicted proteins are in pink, yellow proteins may be partial or unconvincing, green are uORFs. Proteins supported by a single continuous GenBank accession lead to underlining the name/ending of the variant. Names not underlined result from cDNA concatenation in the coding region and should be experimentally checked.
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