Figure 6.

Specific epidermal features not required for cellular plasticity. A,B: Polyploidy of epidermal cells is not the reason why che-1 can induce gcy-5 in usp-48 mutants. A: Assessment of ploidy of epidermal cells. Hedgecock and White had discovered polyploidy of hyp7 cells (Hedgecock and White 1985) but the assessment of ploidy of tail hypdermal cells was not reported in their study and is shown here. See Methods for details. B: Tail epidermal cells exhibit gcy-5::gfp expression after heatshock induction of CHE-1 in usp-48(ot674) animals. C: Epidermal cell fusion is not required for susceptibility of gcy-5::gfp expression after heatshock induction of CHE-1, as assessed in eff-1; usp-48(ot674) mutants.