Figure 4. Cell-autonomous requirement of LIN-12 in vm2.

(A) and (B) Representative images of lin-12(wy750) mutant animals with non-mosaic (A) and mosaic (B) expression of lin-12::SL2::mCherry. Left column shows the vulval muscles labeled by SER-1B::GFP. Middle column shows the lin-12 expression patterns. Right column shows the overlaid images. Note that the complete lin-12 expression (vm2+) rescues muscle arm defects of lin-12(wy750) (A). Lacking of lin-12 expression in vm2 (vm2-) abolishes its capacity to rescue muscle arm defects (B). Boxed areas indicate synaptic regions. Dashed lines indicate the morphology of vm2. Scale bar is 20 μm. (C) Quantification of the vm2 muscle arm phenotypes in the mosaic transgenic animals. *p<0.0001, Fisher's exact test, n = 48–50. (D) Vulval muscle morphology in the apx-1(wy755); lin-12(w750) mutant animals. Boxed area indicates synaptic region. Arrows indicate HSN cell bodies. Scale bar is 20 μm. (E) Epifluorescence and DIC images showing the apx-1 expression pattern in young adult. The four cells in the center of the image are 2° vulval epithelial cells. The four cells at the periphery are vm1 cells. Scale bar is 20 μm. (F) Cell-autonomous requirement of apx-1, sel-12 and lag-1. Quantification of muscle arm phenotypes in animals with different genotypes indicated on the X-axis. *, P<0.0001, Fisher's exact test, n = 40–57.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00378.016

Figure 4—figure supplement 1. APX-1 expression pattern and the relative position of vm2 muscle arms.

(A) Overlaid epifluorescence and DIC images showing the identity of the apx-1 expressing cells. The egl-17::mCD8::mCherry transgene labels the 2° vulval epithelial cells in young adult. Scale bar is 20 μm. (B) Overlaid epifluorescence and DIC images showing the identity of the apx-1 expressing cells. The unc-103e::mCD8::mCherry transgene labels the vm1 cells in young adult . Scale bar is 20 μm. (C) Single confocal slices showing the position of muscle arms and the vulval epithelial cells. Vulval muscles are labeled by mCD8::mCherry. Secondary vulval epithelial cells are labeled by egl-17::gfp transgene (left). Both primary and secondary vulval epithelial cells are labeled by F47B8.6::gfp transgene (right). Note that the muscle arms are located between the 1o and the 2o vulval epithelial cells and directly contact these cells. Arrowheads indicate muscle arms. Scale bar is 10 μm.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00378.017