Fig. 4: Knockdowns of boule and oc-1 cause male GSC over-proliferation in adult parasites.

a Schematic of the sexual maturation process from juveniles to adults, which mate and lay eggs. b Confocal images showing representative individual testis lobules stained by DAPI and EdU in adult parasites after control, oc-1, and boule RNAi. Dashed circles: testis lobule boundary. Note a significant increase of EdU+ nuclei and a marked reduction of differentiated germ cells. n: number of samples exhibiting the reported phenotype out of the total number of samples analyzed. c Since accurate counting of germ cells, which are densely packed in adult testes, is challenging, the number density of EdU+ nuclei per unit image area in testes normalized against the abundance in control parasites is quantified instead. N = 5 (control RNAi); N = 4 (oc-1 RNAi); N = 4 (boule RNAi). Data are plotted as average ± standard deviation and p-values are calculated using two-sided Welch’s t-test. RNAi experiments were repeated on at least three biological replicates.