Fig. 7: Repression of RTEs prevents cell death in condensin insufficient larval neuroblasts and adjacent cells.

a Third instar larval brains were dissected from female larvae expressing control UAS-GFP dsRNA (green circles) or UAS-cap-d3 dsRNA (orange squares), under the control of eyGAL4, GMRGAL4, immunostained with antibodies to detect stem cell marker, Dpn, and cell death marker, Dcp1, and imaged using confocal microscopy. The percentage of cells that stained positive for both Dpn and Dcp1 were quantified. Larvae were developed on food containing DMSO as a control (closed circles and squares), or on food containing 5 µM AZT (open circles and squares). b Dcp1+, Dpn− cells located adjacent to Dpn-positive cells in female third instar larval brains (experiments described in (a)) were quantified. Results shown in (a, b) include larvae harvested from two independent experiments; each data point represents a single brain. c Experiments described in (a) were performed on brains dissected from cap-d3 transheterozygous mutant (blue squares) male larvae or wild-type (green circles) male larvae. Results shown include larvae harvested from two independent experiments; each data point represents a single brain. d, e Adult female fly head sizes were measured on flies expressing control UAS-GFP dsRNA (green circles) or UAS-cap-d3 dsRNA (orange squares) driven by eyGAL4, GMRGAL4 at 25 °C. Flies were developed on food containing DMSO as a control (closed circles and squares), or on food containing (d) 5 µM AZT or (e) 5 µM d4T (open circles and squares). f Adult male head sizes were measured on wild-type flies (green circles), on cap-d3 transheterozygotes (sky blue squares) or cap-d3 heterozygotes (light blue and dark blue squares). Flies were developed on food containing DMSO as a control (closed circles and squares), or on food containing 5 µM AZT (open circles and squares). Results shown in (d–f) include adults harvested from two independent experiments; each data point represents a single fly. P values were determined by performing two-tailed Mann–Whitney analyses. For (a), ****p ≤ 0.0001 and ****# p ≤ 0.0001. For (b), *p = 0.0434, **p = 0.0079, NS not significant. For (c), **p = 0.0013, ***p = 0.0007, NS not significant. For (d), *p = 0.0208, *#p = 0.0336, **p = 0.0014. For (e), *p = 0.038, **p = 0.0015, **#p = 0.0084, NS not significant. For (f), *p = 0.0181, **p = 0.0018, ****p ≤ 0.0001, ****#p ≤ 0.0001, NS not significant. For all experiments, error bars indicate standard deviations from the mean.