Under heat-killed bacteria feeding conditions, animals were very unhealthy so that stage progression may not correlate with growth well. Larval growth in this paper as indicated by increase in gonad length. (
A) Microscopic images of larvae fed HK-OP50 with various vitamin supplements. Gonad length of each worm was measured using ImageJ at Day 7, to evaluate progression of larval growth, which reflects the consumption of the food. The statistical data are shown in the scatter plot in
Figure 2A. (
B) Gonad length (dotted line) of wild-type worms fed live OP50 in different developmental stages, and the vulval morphology (green arrow) of L4 worms. (
C) Gonad length of wild-type worms fed HK-OP50 or HK+VB2 food. If purely based on gonad length (dotted line), worms fed HK food would be at about late L1 to early L2, worms fed HK+VB2 food would be at about late L2 to late L3 stages, comparing to well-fed worms in (
B). However, the vulval morphology (yellow arrow) of some worms fed HK+VB2 food appeared to reach L4 stage.