Figure 8. lin-29a is required for the establishment of male-specific features of locomotor behavior.

There are lin-29a dependent and lin-29a independent adult-specific sexually dimorphic locomotory features. Cartoon of an adult C. elegans depicts the location of the body parts used for feature computation. The arrows for each body part represent the bend angle. Wavelength and amplitude while crawling are shown. Adult hermaphrodites and males showed sex-specific differences in posture, path and locomotory features that were not affected by lin-29a absence (top panel). A complete list of sexually dimorphic features not affected by lin-29a is provided in Supplementary file 1. In lin-29a mutant males, a number of sexually dimorphic features were feminized compared to wild-type males (bottom panel), including posture and locomotory features. Restoration of lin-29a expression in command interneuron AVA and ventral nerve cord motor neurons (otEx7320) partially rescued the feminization of two postural features (midbody bend and wavelength) as well as one locomotory feature (midbody crawling amplitude) (n = 20).