Figure 6.

RNAi clones that decrease mitochondrial fragmentation improve movement in body wall muscle model of Huntington’s disease. BW-Htt74Q and BW-Htt28Q control worms were treated with RNAi against genes that were previously shown to decrease mitochondrial fragmentation when knocked down by RNAi. Movement was then assessed by crawling and thrashing assays using an unbiased video-tracking automated system. Ten of the 25 RNAi clones that decrease mitochondrial fragmentation were found to increase the crawling rate in BW-Htt74Q worms (A). Of these 10 RNAi clones, two RNAi clones also increased crawling speed in BW-Htt28Q control worms, indicating that 8 RNAi clones specifically improve movement in the disease model (B). Five of the 25 RNAi clones that decrease mitochondrial fragmentation increased the rate of movement in liquid (thrashing rate) of BW-Htt74Q worms (C). Only one of the RNAi clones increased the thrashing rate of BW-Htt28Q worms (D). Three RNAi clones, F25B5.6, alh-12 and pgp-3 increased both crawling speed and thrashing rate in BW-Htt74Q worms. Blue bars show BW-Htt28Q worms treated with empty vector (EV). Grey bars show BW-Htt74Q worms treated with empty vector. Green bars show RNAi clones that significantly increased movement. Red bars show RNAi clones that significantly decreased movement. Blue dotted line shows rate of movement for BW-Htt28Q treated with EV. Grey dotted line shows rate of movement for BW-Htt74Q treated with EV. Bars indicate the mean value. Significance was assessed using one-way ANOVA. Error bars indicate SEM. *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001.