Figure 2.

Maternal NIP is not essential for embryogenesis. (A-C) Maternal NIP expression is lost in the pBac germline clone flies. Total RNA was isolated from eggs laid by w¹¹¹⁸ (WT), pBac/CyO (pBac), pBac GLC (pBac-G) females at one hour AEL. The nip and numb cDNA probes used were: (A) nip-RA n176-472, which is upstream of the pBac insertion site; (B) nip-RA n602-1117, which is downstream of pBac insertion site; (C) numb n286-816. The full-length nip mRNA (arrow) is detected in wt and pBac eggs, while truncated nip mRNA (arrow head) is detected in pBac and pBac-GLC eggs. The asterisk (*) shows the position of Drosophila 18S rRNA (1.98 kb). (D&D') Staining of a pBac-GLC (D) and a wild type (D') egg chamber with an anti-NIP antibody. No NIP protein was detected in the oocyte (O) or nurse cells (N) in the pBac-GLC egg chamber. (E&E') Staining of eggs laid by pBac-GLC females (E) and wt females (E'). The developmental stages are distinguishable by the nucleus staining (blue): the right eggs are at post-cellularization stages and left eggs at the pre-blastoderm stage. No NIP protein is detected in the pBac-GLC embryo at the pre-blastoderm stage. (F) Hatch ratios of embryos from the nip mutant and the germline flies.