Fig. 5: Loss of eat-17 and bicd-1 cause ectopic accumulation of the dendrite branching ligand SAX-7 in the lateral region of the epidermis.

a Confocal images showing the distribution of the endogenous SAX-7::GFP and PVD dendrite morphologies in different strains. Arrows: lateral epidermal regions. Scale bar, 20 μm. b Quantifications of the fluorescence intensity of the endogenous SAX-7::GFP in the lateral region in different strains showed in (a). All values are presented as mean ± s.e.m. WT: n = 41 animals; mec-3(zac395): n = 34 animals; eat-17(ok2983): n = 31 animals; eat-17(ok2983);mec-3(zac395): n = 37 animals; eat-17(ok2983) Ex[skin::eat-17f]: n = 28 animals. ns: not significant. ****p < 0.0001 (one-sided ANOVA with the Tukey correction). c Confocal images showing the distribution of the endogenous SAX-GFP and exogenous MYR::BFP (as a marker for the epidermal plasma membranes). The image in the lower right corner was 2 times enlarged. Scale bar, 20 μm. d Co-localization analysis for the endogenous SAX-7::GFP and the epidermal plasma membrane marker (MYR::BFP) in different strains. All values are presented as mean ± s.e.m. ns: not significant. ****p < 0.0001 (one-sided ANOVA with the Tukey correction). n = 10 animals were imaged and quantified for each column. e Confocal images showing the PVD dendrite morphologies of wildtype, eat-17(ok2983), sax-7(nj48), sax-7(nj48); eat-17(ok2983), mnr-1(wy758), mnr-1(wy758); eat-17(ok2983), lect-2(ok2617), lect-2(ok2617); eat-17 (ok2983), dma-1 (tm5159) and dma-1(tm5159); eat-17(ok2983). All animals were at 1 day old stage. Scale bar, 20 μm. f Quantification of number of ectopic 3^o branches derived from 2° branches in a 100 μm region anterior to the PVD cell body in the strains showed in (e). All values are presented as mean ± s.e.m. ns: not significant. ****p < 0.0001 (one-sided ANOVA with the Tukey correction). n = 20 animals were quantified for each column. For (b–f) source data are provided as a Source Data file.