Fig. 1: MUFAs upregulate the number of lipid droplets in the intestine.
a, Schematic of genetic and dietary interventions that lead to MUFA accumulation in C. elegans. Mammalian gene names are indicated first. In all figures and panels, worms are hermaphrodites (female-like), except for Fig. 1g and Extended Data Fig. 1g, where males are used. b,c, Intestinal puncta, assessed by SRS microscopy, following MUFA accumulation. b, SRS image of total lipids in the anterior part of one worm (head and intestine; top). Zoomed-in images of the intestine (bottom). Scale bars, 100 µm (top) and 5 µm (bottom). c, Number of intestinal puncta in n = 18, 30, 27 and 19 worms treated with control, fat-7, ash-2 and fat-2 RNAi, respectively. Puncta intensities are provided in Extended Data Fig. 1e. d, Intestinal lipid droplets, assessed by SRS microscopy, in worms expressing the lipid droplet protein DHS-3 fused to GFP driven by the endogenous dhs-3 promoter (intestinal expression; dhs-3p::dhs-3::GFP) following MUFA accumulation. Zoomed-in images of the intestine. Scale bar, 5 µm. Lipid droplet numbers, as assessed by double-positive puncta, are provided in Extended Data Fig. 1f. e,f, Number of intestinal lipid droplets, assessed by fluorescence, in dhs-3p::dhs-3::GFP worms following MUFA accumulation. e, Fluorescence image of the anterior part of one worm (head and intestine; top). Zoomed-in fluorescence images of the intestine (bottom). Scale bars, 100 µm (top) and 5 µm (bottom). f, Number of lipid droplets in n = 17, 12, 17 and 13 worms treated with control, fat-7, ash-2 and fat-2 RNAi, respectively. g, Number of intestinal lipid droplets, assessed by fluorescence, in dhs-3p::dhs-3::GFP worms (n = 22 male worms for each condition) following MUFA accumulation. h, Hypodermal lipid droplet number—assessed by fluorescence in worms expressing the lipid droplet protein PLIN-1 fused to mCherry driven by the endogenous plin-1 promoter (ubiquitous expression; plin-1p::plin-1::mCherry)—following MUFA accumulation. Zoomed-in images of the hypodermis. Scale bar, 5 µm. Lipid droplet numbers are provided in Extended Data Fig. 1h. Elements of a, d and h are created with BioRender.com. c,f,g, Data are representative of three (c,f) or two (g) independent experiments. Each dot represents the number of puncta in a 26 × 26 µm2 area in the intestine of an individual worm. Data are the mean ± s.d. P values were determined using a two-tailed Mann–Whitney test. Source data are provided.
