Figure 3: mab21-l3 is required for the formation of MCCs.

(a–c) Mab21-l3 MO leads to loss of MCCs. (a,b) Control MO, mab21-l3 MO or mab21-l3 5mis MO (30 ng each) was injected into the animal region of the left ventral blastomere at the four-cell stage. Injected embryos were fixed at stage 22–23, then stained with the acetylated α-tubulin antibody (green). (a) The lower panels show higher magnification of boxed areas in upper panels. The number of acetylated α-tubulin-positive MCCs was decreased in mab21-l3 MO-injected embryos (100%, n=14), but not affected in those injected with control MO (90%, n=21) or mab21-l3 5mis MO (79%, n=19). A, anterior; P, posterior. Scale bars, 500 μm (upper panels) and 50 μm (lower panels). (b) The ratio of the number of MCCs per field in the MO-injected side to that in the uninjected side. Shown is the average from embryos in two independent experiments. n, number of embryos scored. The error bar represents s.d. **P<0.01 by Tukey’s test. (c) Control MO, mab21-l3 MO or mab21-l3 5mis MO (60 ng each) was co-injected with the tracer mCherry-CAAX mRNA (200 pg) into the animal region of two ventral blastomeres at the four-cell stage. Injected embryos were fixed at stage 23 and then stained with the acetylated α-tubulin antibody (green). Images were acquired using the DeltaVision Optical Sectioning system. The right graph shows the average of the number of MCCs per field. The data were obtained from 12 embryos (four fields per embryo) in two independent experiments. Scale bars, 15 μm. The error bar represents s.d. **P<0.01 by Tukey’s test.