Fig 5. Apoptosis is not required to reduce gonad size during the oogenic germline starvation response.

Nomarski images of gonads of mid-L4 wild-type animal and animals with the three different alleles of ced-3 (A, D, G and J). Nomarski images of gonads of wild-type and ced-3 mutant animals starved for 5 days (B, E, H and K). Nomarski images of gonads of wild-type and ced-3 animals that spent 5 days under starvation and were recovered on food for 3 days (C, F, I and L). In all images one gonad arm is outlined in white; the distal gonad is marked with an asterisk (*); the arrow points to the proximal gonad. Scale bar = 20 μm. (M) Germ cell nuclei per gonad arm scored in wild-type animals and two ced-3 defective mutants by DAPI staining. The graph shows the average number of germ cell nuclei per gonad arm in control conditions (solid lines) and during starvation (dotted lines) ±SEM at each point.