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. 2014 Mar 21;9(3):e92687. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0092687

Figure 4. ndk-1 functions likely downstream of ced-10 in the process of DTC migration and shows a genetic interaction with abi-1.

Figure 4

A: Epistasis analysis using mutants of the homeodomain transcription factor vab-3, the α-integrin ina-1 and the downstream functioning CED-10 pathway genes suggests that NDK-1 acts downstream of CED-10/Rac. Loss of ndk-1 reduced the extra turn phenotype of vab-3, ina-1, unc-73, mig-2, ced-5, ced-12 and ced-10 mutants (B) and mostly resulted in Ndk-1-like gonad (B). Examining double mutants of ndk-1 and the parallel pathway functioning in DTC migration, we found that abl-1(ok171) did not influence the reduced migration of ndk-1 mutants. However, the abi-1(ok640) mutation (B) was able to partially restore the DTC migration defects of ndk-1(ok314) animals (B). The different DTC migration categories are described in Materials and Methods. Statistical analysis used Fisher's exact test. The difference in the distribution of migration phenotypes was significant (Fisher's exact test, p≤0.05) in all pairs of single and double mutants (with the exception of ndk-1(RNAi) and vab-3(e1796);ndk-1(RNAi) mutants (p>0.05)).