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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Aug 8.
Published in final edited form as: Nature. 2017 Feb 8;542(7641):367–371. doi: 10.1038/nature21362

Figure 1. C. elegans touch neurons can extrude cytoplasmic contents.

Figure 1

a. An exopher is generated with a striking concentration of fluorescence segregated to the extrusion. Strain is Is[pmec-4mCh2]. ALM neuron with mCherry-visualized cytoplasm and aggregates. See supplementary Video 1 for corresponding movie: https://youtu.be/HR-G9UphZeA.

b. Exophers do not include nuclear-like levels of DNA. Blue, DAPI; red, cytoplasm. 0/25 exophers but 25/25 soma were DAPI positive. Strain is Is[pmec-4mCh2].

c. An ALMR soma with one attached exopher (right) and one unattached (left). Strain is Is[pmec-4mCh1]; Is[pmec-4GFP].

d. Individual touch neurons differ in their production of detectable exophers. ALMR neurons produce most (~23%) for Is[pmec-18sid-1]; Is[pmec-4mCh3], and PLM neurons fail to generate detectable extrusions (0/>500). 12 trials of RNAi empty vector controls with n > 500 total for each neuron. All animals, adult day 2; E, exophers; S, soma; arrowhead, neuronal process; scale bars, 2 μm; trial means ± s.d. Data in d are mean ± s.d.