Figure 4.

Early HSN and vulval muscle activity is not required for the onset of egg-laying behavior. A, Scatter plots of the first egg-laying event in wild-type (gray), HSN-deficient egl-1(n986dm) (red open circles), serotonin-deficient tph-1(mg280) (green triangles), egl-6(n592dm) (purple squares), and egl-47(n1082dm) (pink open squares) mutant animals. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals for the mean from ≥19 animals. *p ≤ 0.0016, one-way ANOVA. B, Scatter plots showing eggs laid by 3 24 h adult animals in 2 h before (filled circles) and in 2 h after incubation on plates with 10 mm histamine (open circles). Transgenic animals expressing HisCl in vulval muscles (orange), HSN neurons (green), all neurons (blue) were compared with the nontransgenic wild-type (gray). Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals for the mean from ≥17 paired replicates. *p < 0.0001; n.s. indicate p = 0.5224, paired Student's t test. C, Top, Transgenic L4.7 animals expressing HisCl channels were incubated on NGM plates with or without 10 mm histamine until the L4 adult molt. Animals were then moved to plates lacking histamine and allowed to recover and lay eggs. Bottom, Scatter plots showing the timing of the first egg-laying event with (open circles) and without (filled circles) histamine. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals for the mean; n.s. indicates p > 0.9999, one-way ANOVA.