Fig. 4.

RNA-seq analysis of transcriptome changes in chd-7(gk290) mutant dauers. (A) Heat map of expression values for the 84 DEGs (cutoff of 0.05 on FDR). DEGs were determined using DESeq2 (v1.20.0). The color scale represents the normalized count values in log₂ scale. Hierarchical clustering of the DEGs is represented by dendrograms at bottom. (B) Expression levels of daf-9 mRNA are increased in chd-7(gk290); daf-2(e1370) partial dauers and in L3-like arrested chd-7(gk290) animals upon starvation (Fig. 1G). Error bars indicate SE from three biological repeats. Two-tailed unpaired t test. *P < 0.05 and **P < 0.01. (C) daf-9 knockdown in chd-7;daf-7(e1372) animals rescues dauer arrest at 25 °C. Two to three young L4s were plated on to freshly seeded plates with either daf-9 or Control empty vector RNAi and allowed to lay eggs. After 72 h, the adults were removed and the proportion of progeny that arrested as dauers was calculated. Bars and horizontal black lines represent mean percentage with SD (n > 598 total animals per strain). (D) daf-9 RNAi rescues arrest in chd-7;daf-7(e1372) animals but leads to partial dauers. Arrested animals grown at 25 °C on daf-9 RNAi plates were treated with 1% SDS for 30 min and survival was scored. Bars and horizontal black lines represent mean percentage with SD (n > 159 total animals per strain). One-way ANOVA, ****P < 0.0001, compared to daf-7(e1372).