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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Mar 4.
Published in final edited form as: Curr Biol. 2019 Feb 21;29(5):823–833.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.01.056

Figure 3: Ectopic germ cell en wrapment resembles niche enwrapment but does not support germ cell proliferation.

Figure 3:

(A) Maximum intensity z-projections through 5 μm of the DTC central plexus (top left, lag-2p::GFP::CAAX) and body wall muscle cell membrane (bottom left, myo-3p::GFP:: CAAX). Germ cells (second column) are enwrapped both in the endogenous niche (top) and ectopically by muscle (bottom). Boxes in overlay (third) show areas of enlargement (right) in which both DTC (top) and muscle (bottom) have thin, enwrapping projections that surround germ cells. (B) Control (top) animal expressing lag-2p::GFP::CAAX (left) in the DTC (arrow) and muscle (arrowhead) after epi-1 RNAi have a robust germ cell population (center, mex-5p::H2B::mCherry). DTC-ablated animals (bottom) had few germ cells 48 h post-ablation compared to controls. Single confocal z-slices are shown. Full projection of the control animal also appears in Figure S5. (C) The DTC niche (left, lag-2p::myr::tdTomato) expresses the CRISPR/Cas9-tagged Notch ligand LAG-2::mNeonGreen (center), which localizes in a punctate pattern in the DTC membrane in one-day adults. Maximum intensity z-projections through 2.5 μm of confocal slices are shown. (D) Body wall muscles (left, myo-3p::GFP::CAAX) do not express LAG-2::mNeonGreen (center, punctate DTC expression visible), overlay (right). Maximum intensity z-projections through 5 μm of confocal slices are shown. Scale bars are 10 μm.