Fig. 4.

DAPT causes a differential increase in the expression of NvAshA, NvAth-like and NvSoxB(2) over developmental time. (A) Box-and-whisker plot showing the number of cells expressing each gene counted in a defined section of ectoderm, n=10 embryos/treatment/stage. Significant increases (*) in cell number were observed at both blastula (P=0.007) and gastrula (P=0.001) stage for NvAth-like and at gastrula stage for NvSoxB(2) (P=3.8E-06). Whiskers depict 1.5IQR above and below the third and first quartile, respectively. (B) RT-qPCR shows a similar response to DAPT at the transcript level, with all genes being upregulated at both the gastrula and planula stages, but with the response of NvAshA at gastrula stage being very mild. At late gastrula stage, morpholino knockdown of NvNotch causes an increase in target gene expression which correlates with the expression changes recorded via DAPT inhibition. Graph depicts means and s.e. of relative fold changes in expression between treatment and control samples across three biological replicates (values between 1.0 and −1.0 are omitted, as they indicate no change). (C) Summary of timing and magnitude of gene expression changes as a result of DAPT treatment in Nematostella.