Enables protein serine/threonine kinase activity. Involved in several processes, including determination of adult lifespan; nematode male tail tip morphogenesis; and regulation of axon extension. Located in axon and neuronal cell body. Is expressed in body wall musculature; neurons; and pharyngeal muscle cell. Orthologous to human ULK1 (unc-51 like autophagy activating kinase 1) and ULK2 (unc-51 like autophagy activating kinase 2).
WB Description
unc-51 encodes a serine/threonine protein kinase orthologous to Saccharomyces cerevisiae autophagy protein Atg1p and the vertebrate ULK proteins; unc-51 is required for axon outgrowth along the anterior-posterior axis and sex myoblast migration; in regulating axon outgrowth, UNC-51 functions together with the VAB-8 kinesin-like protein and UNC-14, both of which physically interact with, and are phosphorylated by, UNC-51, and with the UNC-5 Netrin receptor, whose subcellular localization in neurons is regulated by UNC-51 and UNC-14; in addition, UNC-51 is required for normal dauer morphogenesis of daf-2 mutant animals; UNC-51 is expressed in all C. elegans neurons and in body wall and pharyngeal muscles; in neurons, an UNC-51::GFP fusion protein shows punctate cytoplasmic localization in axons and cell bodies and partial co-localization with UNC-14 and UNC-5.