vps-34 (LET-512, B0025.1; UniProt Q9TXI7) review notes

Deep research status

just deep-research-falcon worm vps-34 --fallback perplexity-lite failed on 2026-10-08. Falcon was killed at its 600 s timeout, and the perplexity provider was unavailable in this environment. No deep-research file was created. The review is based on the UniProt record, cached publications and PubMed searches.

Key findings

• Immunoprecipitated worm VPS-34 has PtdIns 3-kinase activity PMID:11927551
• The protein is concentrated at the nuclear envelope; null mutants arrest at the L3/L4 molts with an expanded perinuclear space PMID:11927551
• BEC-1 is needed for VPS-34 function in autophagy, trafficking and endocytosis PMID:16111945
• In phagosome maturation, VPS-34 acts with the class II PI3K PIKI-1 PMID:22272187, downstream of DYN-1 PMID:18425118.
• SORF-1/2 restrain the activity of the BEC-1/VPS-34 complex on endosomes PMID:26783301
• The worm complex I subunit EPG-8 (divergent Atg14) binds BEC-1 PMID:21116129.

Curation decisions

• Core functions: GO:0016303 in complex I (autophagosome assembly) and complex II (endocytosis, phagosome maturation).
• Generic protein binding (BEC-1 IPI) removed.
• Pleiotropic developmental and trafficking phenotypes (molting, LRP-1 secretion, nuclear envelope, endosome size, life span) kept as non-core.
• IBA peroxisome and PI-mediated signaling marked as over-annotated.
• Engulfment terms kept as non-core: the evidence points to phagosome maturation rather than engulfment PMID:18425118.

Follow-up on description sources (2026-10-30)

• UniProt FUNCTION also lists a possible role in gut granule (lysosome-related organelle) formation, citing the RNAi screen PMID:15843430, and a role in larval germline stem cell proliferation, citing PMID:28285998. Both cached papers are abstract-only and their abstracts do not name vps-34 PMID:28285998. These are RNAi phenotypes peripheral to the PtdIns3P kinase function and were not added to the description or annotated.