FIGURE 3.

Motor neuron expression of hSOD1 induces a reduction in climbing activity without gross loss of motor neuron nuclei. A, climbing activity was compromised in flies expressing mutant or WT hSOD1 relative to flies expressing dSOD1 (blue bars). G85R showed a deficit from 14 days onwards (green bars), WT showed a deficit from 21 days (red bars), and A4V showed a deficit at 28 days (purple bars). Bars represent climbing indices for genotypes normalized to the 1-day climbing index of dSOD1 controls, ± S.E. from at least three experiments. B, the number of motor neurons was determined by counting nuclei in the T1/T2 border (rectangular selection) in confocal stacks of whole-mounted thoracic ganglia. Shown is a thoracic ganglion of genotype D42/UAS-GFP. Ab, abdominal ganglion. the number of labeled nuclei detected in the T1/T2 border was not different at any time point when compared with controls (gold bars) or between time points for flies expressing dSOD1, WT, A4V, or G85R hSOD1 (blue, red, purple, and green bars, respectively) in motor neurons (analysis of variance, p > 0.05). The cell number is normalized to 1-day controls within each experiment; average ± S.E. from at least two experiments (5-10 flies each) is presented.