In wild-type animals, OMA-1 accumulates during oogenesis and remain high until the 1-cell stage, but rapidly declines during the first and second mitosis. However, OMA-1 protein levels remain high in
mbk-2 mutant embryos. MBK-2 can phosphorylate OMA-1 and that phosphorylation is important for the destruction on OMA-1 protein in vivo.