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. 2012 Mar 12;109(13):4986–4991. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1117317109

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.

mlf controls embryonic and larval crystal cell homeostasis. (A–C) Decreased expression of the crystal cell differentiation marker PO45 is observed in the absence of mlf. Dorsal (Upper) and lateral (Lower) views showing PO45 expression in stage 15 embryos of the indicated genotypes. (D) Stage 15 mlf embryos have fewer PO45-expressing cells. Expression of mlf or its human homolog MLF1 under the control of lz-Gal4 in mlf mutant backgrounds restores WT crystal cell number. (E) Immunostaining against LZ reveals a progressively decreasing number of LZ-expressing hemocytes in mlf embryos. (F and G) lz-Gal4, UAS-GFP third instar wandering larvae of the indicated genotypes were bled to determine the relative number of circulating hemocytes or LZ-GFP+ cells (F), as well as the proportion of differentiated (PO45+) and progenitor (PO45−) LZ-GFP+ cells (G). (F) Loss of mlf induces an increase in the number of circulating larval LZ-GFP+ cells that is suppressed by expression of mlf or human MLF1 in this lineage. (G) mlf does not affect the ratio of progenitor to differentiated LZ-GFP+ cells. (H and I) Posterior segments of third instar larvae showing that mlf loss induces an increase in the number of crystal cells, as demonstrated by their blackening after heat treatment. ***P < 0.0001 compared with WT, Student t test.