Figure 3

Inactivation of components in the synMuv B gene class enhances the lin-35(rr33) intestinal defect. (A) lin-35(rr33) animals were fed with bacterial clones that corresponded to the various components of the synMuv B complex and the number of intestinal nuclei were scored in L4 larvae 48 hrs later. The nhr-2 gene encodes a nuclear hormone receptor that has not been implicated in the synMuv B complex and was used as a negative control. (B) Feeding RNAi of some of the synMuv B genes was performed on wild-type animals and they also cause an slight increase in intestinal nuclei number, although to a lesser extent than lin-35(rr33) alone. The asterisk denotes a Student t-Test value of < 0.05 compared to lin-35(rr33) in A and wild-type in B. (C) A representative example of the multinucleate intestinal cells found in double mutant lin-35(rr33); dpl-1(RNAi) and lin-35(rr33); efl-1(RNAi) animals. The arrowheads indicate the intestinal cell boundaries. (D) The number of multinucleate cells was monitored in various genetic backgrounds. In wild type, all the intestinal cells of the Int3-9 rings have either 1 or 2 intestinal nuclei.