Fig. 8: UXT is required in coping with proteotoxicity in Xenopus.

a Reverse transcription-PCR of UXT mRNA in whole tadpole and spinal cord tissue. The entire coding sequence of UXT mRNA was amplified with a band of 460 bp. b In situ hybridization of UXT mRNA (left) and immunohistochemistry of acetylated tubulin (right). The green arrow indicates a lower motor neuronal cell body and the yellow arrows indicate the axons of these neurons. Scale bar, 10 µm. c UXT morpholino (MO) was injected to four blastomeres at the eight cells stage. The injected tadpoles showed a dose-dependent defect in gross morphology in contrast to the control group. The numbers indicate the number of embryos with the same morphology as the representative image out of all examined embryos. Scale bar, 1 mm. d Tadpoles injected with 0.5 ng of control or UXT MO together with wild-type SOD1, but showing normal morphology were analyzed for their motor ability as in Fig. 7d. In three independent experiments, each with the full set of groups, the behaviors of 19, 20, 19, and 28 tadpoles were recorded for control, SOD1 WT, UXT MO, and UXT MO + SOD1 WT group, respectively. St stage. e Quantification of d at stage 43. Cyan, yellow, and orange bars indicate normal, reduced, and no swimming responses, respectively. Ctl control. ***p < 0.001 (two-sided Fisher’s exact tests).