Figure 2. Ectopic expression of connexin in AWC and AIB.
(a) Circuit diagram showing a desired new link between AWC and AIB formed by an engineered electrical synapse. Inset, a synthetic AWC-AIB electrical synapse, or gap junction, is constructed by expressing connexin in AWC and AIB. (b,c) Chemotaxis following AIA removal (strain JN580 in panel b, and strain BJH858 in panel c; see Methods) and ectopic expression of connexin in AWC alone, AIB alone or both (all n=21). (d) Chemotaxis following connexin expression in AWB compared to AWC in worms lacking AIA (n=15,16,14). (e) Examples of the Pinx-1 promoter, which we used for dirving connexin expression in AIB, exhibiting an AIB-specific expression pattern, as observed in adult worms from strain BJH1033 containing Pinx-1::GcAMP. Boxes represent mean ± 95% confidence intervals. * p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001.