Supplementary Figure 3: Expressing wild-type UNC-70 in the epidermis reduces buckling observed in unc-70 mutants.

a, Representative images of AVM shape during ventral (top) and dorsal (bottom) bending in unc70(s1502);oxIs95, unc-70(e524);oxIs95, unc-70(n493);oxIs95 mutant animals. The oxIs95 transgene drives expression of full-length, wild-type UNC70 in the epidermis. The bright fluorescence in the pharynx is the co-transformation marker used to construct transgenic animals expressing wild-type unc-70 in the epidermis b, AVM shape during ventral (top) and dorsal (bottom) bending in transgenic worms expressing a dominant negative-spectrin fragment in TRNs only. Scale bar in b applies to a and is 50 μm. c, Average neuron curvature vs. average body curvature of the same genotypes as in a. Each point is an average of 10–30 curvature measurements along the body in each frame (Methods). The shaded area (beige) is a moving average of the standard deviation for 15–20 points. r is the Pearsons correlation coefficient of neuron and body curvature. Statistical difference of the correlation coefficient r was tested using a Fisher z-transform of r; p values relative to controls are indicated in the upper right. n still images collected from N animals during three imaging sessions. d, Average neuron curvature vs. average body curvature of the same genotypes as in b. Each point is an average of 10–30 curvature measurements along the body in each frame (Methods). The shaded area (beige) is a moving average of the standard deviation for 15–20 points. r is the Pearsons correlation coefficient of neuron and body curvature. Statistical difference of the correlation coefficient r was tested using a Fisher z-transform of r. Significant differences to control worms are indicated by a p value indicated in the upper right. n still images collected from N animals during three imaging sessions. e, f, Maximum off-axis deformation (buckling), umax, of AVM as a function of body strain derived from the data in c and d. Each point is the maximum deformation detected at a given body posture. Solid black line is a running average of 15 images; beige curve is a fit of the buckling deformation as function of (see Supplementary Note 1). Exact p values (upper left) are relative to wild type, with a significance level of α = 0.01. Tensile strain is positive and increases to the left, compressive strain is negative and increases to the right of the zero strain.