Fig. 4.

Muscle strength is disrupted by loss of mitochondrial fission and fusion. a Schematic representation of the burrowing assay used to quantify muscle strength in C. elegans. An agar-filled serological pipette is injected with worms at one end, and an attractant (diacetyl) at the other. Worms burrow through the agar towards the attractant and the distance (in cm) moved is measured for each animal after 4 h. b Burrowing assay for 1DOA drp-1(tm1108) worms show no significant difference in distance moved compared to wild type. ceat-3(ad426) and dfzo-1(cjn020) show significantly reduced distance burrowed at 1DOA compared to wild type. edrp-1(tm1108) show significantly reduced distance burrowed at 5DOA. Data is represented as mean ± SEM cumulative distance covered across three replicate experiments. n ≥ 36 worms. ^nsP > 0.05, *P < 0.05, ***P < 0.001 from multiple t tests per row using the Holm–Sidak method