Figure 1.

sax-7 interacts with genes that function in the SV cycle but not in synaptogenesis. (A) rab-3; sax-7 mutant animals exhibit synthetic Unc locomotion with a tendency to coil that is not observed in either rab-3 or sax-7 single mutant animals. Here we used the sax-7(eq1) allele. (B) Graphs tracing the movements of 10 random animals per strain over a span of 1 min. Each colored line represents the tracks of an individual animal with the point of origin marked as a black circle in the center (0,0 coordinate). These graphs reveal that sax-7 interacts with SV cycle genes, (i) rab-3 as well as (ii) unc-13 and unc-10, resulting in a synergistic reduction in the ability to disperse. In contrast, sax-7 does not interact with genes that function in synaptogenesis, (iii) rpm-1 and syd-1. (C) The ability to disperse, quantified as the radial distance traveled by each animal over a span of 1 min, is illustrated in a scatter plot where each point is a data point for a single animal; the mean and the 95% confidence intervals are marked in red. The blue plots are data points for mutant strains of SV cycle genes while gray plots show data points for mutant strains of synaptogenesis genes. n = 50–75, P-values are calculated using one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni’s post hoc test and compared between the double mutant and the single mutant exhibiting the stronger phenotype; n.s., not significant.