Fig 9. MAI-2 is important to induce apoptosis under physiological and stress conditions.

Germ cell apoptosis was assessed in mai-2 mutants using the strain MD701 bcIs39[Plim-7::ced-1::gfp; lin-15(+)] in which apoptotic cell corpses can be easily visualized under a fluorescence microscope. Germ cell corpses per gonad arm were counted in one-day-old adults of the indicated backgrounds under physiological (A) and stress conditions (B-C). Animals were exposed to starvation, heat shock, UV-C irradiation (B) and paraquat (C), as indicated in the materials and methods section. We show the average of three independent experiments for physiological apoptosis (A). For apoptosis induced by starvation, heat shock and UV-C irradiation we show the average of two independent experiments (B), while for apoptosis induced by oxidative stress we show the average of three independent experiments for ced-1::gfp and ced-1::gfp;mai-2(xm18) mutant, while the average of two independent experiments are shown for ced-1::gfp;mai-2(xm19) (C). (A-C) The data represent means±SEM and the number of animals analyzed in each condition is shown in each bar. Dunn´s test was used to compare each condition with the control and ns represents non-significant. ***P<0.0001, **P<0.001, *P<0.01.