Fig. 3: C. elegans attraction to ammonia is independent of other chemotactic responses and conserved in multiple Pseudomonas species.
a Chemical choice assay between benzaldehyde and water with saturating concentrations of volatile ammonium acetate (left) or ammonium hydroxide (right). CI = (# on chemical - # on water)/(# on chemical + # on water). b Bacterial choice assays between WT PA14 and ∆P11 (left) or nirBTn (right) in the presence of saturating concentrations of benzaldehyde. CI = (# on WT PA14–PA14 mutant)/(Total). c Naive avoidance of WT, ∆P11, and nirBTn PA14 lawns over a time course of 12 h. Percent worms on lawn = ((number of worms on lawn/total)*100). d Bacterial choice assay between OP50 and wild Pseudomonas isolates P. vranovensis (left) and P. mendocina (right) with saturating concentrations of volatile ammonia. CI = (# on Pseudomonas–OP50)/(Total). Box Plots: center line = median, box range 25th–75th percentile, minimum/maximum denoted by whiskers, individual choice assay plates are represented by dots and are technical replicates (10 plates/technical replicates for a, b, d). Line graph error bars denote SD and center denotes mean (3 plates/technical replicates per condition). Unpaired T test, two-sided (a, b). One-Way ANOVA (c, d) Tukey’s multiple comparison test. *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001, ****p ≤ 0.0001, ns = not significant (Prism 9). For exact sample size (n), all biological replicates, and p values see source data file.
