Fig. 3.

Trf2 is required for the establishment of sexually dimorphic sensory innervation. a–e Sex-specific sensory projections in the prothoracic ganglion. a The sensory projections stained for poxn-GAL4-positive neurons in the entire ventral nerve cord of a male. Mellert et al.³⁶ reported that 96% of poxn-GAL4-positive sensory cells in forelegs are fru-positive. The prothoracic segment is boxed with a broken line. b–e Enlarged views of prothoracic sensory projections in flies of the indicated genotype. Male-specific midline crossing of sensory afferents (wild-type male: b) was inhibited by Trf2 knockdown in poxn-GAL4-expressing cells in a male fly (c). The reduced level of midline crossing of sensory fibers in the fru hypomorphic mutant male (d) was partially rescued by the overexpression of a wild-type Trf2-S transgene (Trf2-S ⁺) (e). f The regions examined when quantifying the fluorescent intensity to estimate the level of midline crossing of sensory fibers. For more details, see the main text and Methods. g, h Quantitative comparisons of the midline crossing score between flies with and without Trf2 knockdown (g) and those with and without Trf2-S ⁺ overexpression (h) in males and females. Statistical differences were evaluated by Student’s t test. ***P < 0.001, **P < 0.01; ns not significant. Error bars indicate SEM. Scale bars: 100 µm (a), 50 µm (b)