Figure 6. In vivo/ovo expression of DNDrp1 impair the developmental branching of sensory axons.

(A) Examples of DsRed-mito labeled mitochondria in eYFP, eYFP-Drp1 or eYFP-DNDrp1 co-expressing axon in the acutely explanted living spinal cord of an E7 embryo. (B) Quantification of the length and density of mitochondria in axons in the living spinal cord as shown in panel (A). Number of mitochondria and axons are shown above the bars for length and density measurements respectively. 3–4 spinal cords/group. The sample sizes shown over the bars for density reflect the number of axons sampled. Dunn’s posthoc multiple comparison tests. (C) Examples of the morphology in sensory axons extending into the E7 embryonic spinal cord. The images are maximum intensity projections from Z-stacks. Control axons expressing only mCherry, to visualize morphology, were similar to those expressing mCherry and wild type Drp1. In contrast, the axons expressing mCherry and DNDrp1 exhibited simplified morphologies. For the groups expressing Drp1 constructs the insets show the signal from the eYFP label. (D) Quantification of the number of branches (axonal projections longer than 10 μm) per unit length of axon in the living spinal cord. Each data point reflects one axon sampled from 3 to 4 spinal cords/group. Dunn’s multiple comparison tests. Median is denoted by arrowheads to the right of data points.