Figure 1.

Characteristics of adult egl-47 mutants. A, Wild-type hermaphrodite. B, egl-47(n1081dm) gain-of-function mutant. C, egl-47(vs81) null mutant. Arrows indicate unlaid eggs; asterisks indicate the vulvas. n1081dm animals rarely lay eggs, causing an accumulation of unlaid eggs. D, E, HSN morphology in a wild-type and n1081dm hermaphrodite revealed by GFP fluorescence. High-magnification micrographs of the vulval region are shown. Large arrows indicate HSN processes; small arrows indicate the HSN cell bodies; asterisks indicate the vulvas. HSN morphology was not affected by egl-47(n1081dm). F, Number of unlaid eggs retained in wild-type or mutant strains. n ≥ 30 for all measurements. n1081dm and n1082dm mutations caused animals to fill with eggs and were fully dominant, as heterozygous and homozygous animals accumulated numbers of unlaid eggs that were not statistically different (p > 0.1, Student's t test). The vs81 null mutant was not statistically distinguishable from the wild type.