(A) Representative images of a tinCΔ4-GAL4 >
UAS-dFOXO heart, probed for dFOXO and
GAPDH transcripts, converted to grayscale for analysis
using ImageJ. Inset displays a region of interest (cardiomyocyte) prior to
threshold modification. (B) After conversion to 8-bit, the threshold of each
image is arbitrarily changed to a range between 55 and 150 to help eliminate
background signals and off-target probe binding from subsequent particle
analysis. (C) Representative images, post-threshold adjustment, with the inset
displaying the same cardiomyocyte data as in (A). Larger regions of interest,
which exclude non-cardiac tissue, can be selected using the free-hand tool in
ImageJ (yellow line). (D) Values from tinCΔ4-GAL4 ×
yw control vs. tinCΔ4-GAL4 >
UAS-dFOXO hearts (Fig. 2C and
C’) were obtained using the
ImageJ particle analysis tool. dFOXO/GAPDH was calculated for
each heart or region of interest. The graph shows a small representation of the
difference calculated in normalized dFOXO transcripts between
the hearts of the two genotypes. The use of ViewRNA to detect more subtle
changes in cardiac dFOXO transcript levels was previously
published [23].