Fig 8.

Ciliary reversal upon meeting an obstacle is impaired in cells silenced for STO1a. The entire cDNA sequence was used for silencing by feeding, as outlined in Materials and Methods. Due to high similarity of the gene sequences of STO1a to those of STO1b (88%) and STO1c (86%), all of these ohnologs can be assumed to be silenced (see the text). Silenced cells and aliquots mock silenced with the empty vector were observed when swimming through a narrow channel only partly filled with medium. Backward-forward movements per min, when hitting the meniscus, were counted (28.0 ± 2.6 for silenced cells and 20.4 ± 1.97 for mock-silenced cells; P = 0.027) (A), as were cell rotations (2.77 ± 0.38 for silenced cells and 1.00 ± 0.35 for mock-silenced cells; P = 0.002) (B). Both values are reduced significantly in silenced cells. Values are from Student's t test, and deviations are given as means ± SEM. N indicates the number of cells analyzed.