Figure 5

ceh-13 promotes cell fusion in Pn.p lineages. A, Cell fusion pattern of the Pn.p cells in wild-type hermaphrodites at the L1 larval stage. Open circles represent Pn.p cells that fuse with the hypodermal syncytium hyp7, black circles represent Pn.p cells that remain unfused, shaded circle represents P3.p, which fuses with hyp7 only in nearly half of the animals. The Pn.p cells are indicated by numbering below the animal. B, An integrated ajm-1::gfp reporter outlines six unfused Pn.p cells, P(3-8).p, in a wild-type L2 stage larva (top), and, in addition to P(3-8).p, several other Pn.p cells that remain ectopically unfused in ceh-13(-)mutant L2 stage larvae (middle and bottom). The unfused Pn.p cells are indicated by white arrows. C, Effect of ceh-13 deficiency on the Pn.p cell fusion pattern. The fusion pattern in wild-type larvae, as well as in ceh-13(lf) and mab-5(gf) mutant larvae after the early fusion event at the L1/L2 larval stages (the numbers below the circles represents the percentage of the fusion events). 200 individual larvae were examined for each strain.