Fig. 2: Autophagy protects from protein aggregation in the body wall muscles of C. elegans.
From: Bacterial RNA promotes proteostasis through inter-tissue communication in C. elegans
a Representative images of 2-day-old polyQ40::YFP-expressing worms on HT115 diet, treated with empty vector (EV), lgg-1(RNAi), bec-1(RNAi) and vps-34(RNAi). Scale bars in all panels are 100 μm. b Quantification of polyQ40::YFP fluorescent foci of 2-day-old worms on HT115, treated with empty vector (EV), lgg-1(RNAi), bec-1(RNAi) and vps-34(RNAi). The number of aggregates per worm is shown. Number of worms, n = 78 (EV), n = 60 (lgg-1(RNAi)), n = 41 (bec-1(RNAi)), n = 49 (vps-34(RNAi)). All P values are <0.0001. c Quantification of GFP::LGG-1 positive puncta per seam cell of worms on OP50 and HT115. Number of seam cells, n = 93 (OP50), n = 63 (HT115). P < 0.0001. d Representative images of hypodermal seam cells, of plgg-1GFP::LGG-1-expressing L4 animals on OP50 or HT115. Scale bar is 10 μm. e Representative images of body wall muscle cells, of 8-day-old plgg-1mCherryGFP::LGG-1-expressing animals on OP50 or HT115. Scale bar is 10 μm. Arrows show representative mCherry and GFP-positive puncta (autophagosomes). Representative images from three independent experiments are shown. f Quantification of the relative GFP/mCherry LGG-1 positive puncta in muscle cells of worms reared on OP50 and HT115. P < 0.0001. g Quantification of polyQ40::YFP fluorescent foci of 2-day-old worm on HT115, treated EV, tli-1(RNAi), sqst-1(RNAi) and wdfy-3(RNAi). The number of aggregates per worm is shown. Number of worms, n = 142 (EV), n = 156 (tli-1(RNAi)), n = 85 (sqst-1(RNAi)), n = 98 (wdfy-3(RNAi)). All P values are <0.0001. h Representative images of 2-day-old polyQ40::YFP-expressing worms on HT115 diet, treated with EV, tli-1(RNAi), sqst-1(RNAi) and wdfy-3(RNAi). Scale bars in all panels are 200 μm. i Quantification of polyQ40::YFP fluorescent foci of 2-day-old worms treated with EV, tli-1(RNAi) and sqst-1(RNAi) diluted with an equal amount of the EV and a mixture of equal amounts of tli-1(RNAi) and sqst-1(RNAi). The number of aggregates per worm is shown. Number of worms, n = 51 (EV), n = 55 (tli-1(RNAi)/EV)), n = 44 (sqst-1(RNAi)/EV), n = 70 (tli-1(RNAi)/sqst-1(RNAi)). EV vs. tli-1(RNAi)/EV P < 0.0001, EV vs. sqst-1(RNAi)/EV P = 0.0001, tli-1(RNAi)/EV vs. tli-1(RNAi)/sqst-1(RNAi) P < 0.0001, sqst-1(RNAi)/EV vs. tli-1(RNAi)/sqst-1(RNAi) P < 0.0001. All values represent mean ± SD from at least three independent experiments. One-way ANOVA with Sidak’s multiple comparison test (b, g, i) and Mann–Whitney t-test (c, f) were used. ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
