FIGURE 5.

Ca²⁺ transient synchrony was compromised in unc-9 mutant, unc-1 mutant, and unc-9 RNAi worms. A, representative Ca²⁺ transients of the WT, unc-9(fc16), unc-1(e719), worms with muscle unc-9 expression inhibited by RNAi, and unc-9(fc16) rescued by expressing wild-type UNC-9 specifically in muscle. Ca²⁺ transients (F/F₀) of three selected cells are plotted (red trace for Cell a, blue trace for Cell b, and green trace for Cell c). The arrowheads and numbers in the Ca²⁺ transient traces indicate the time points of the imagines shown below. Movies of these representative experiments may be found in the supplemental materials (supplemental Movies S1–S5). B, comparisons of Ca²⁺ transient properties. The data are shown as the means ± S.E. The asterisk indicates a significant difference compared with WT, whereas the pound sign indicates a significant difference compared with unc-9 (p < 0.01, one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc test). The number of worms analyzed was 21 WT, 17 unc-9, 15 unc-1, 13 unc-9 RNAi, and 11 unc-9 rescue. trans., transient; syn., synchronous; freq., frequency.