Fig. 1: MET-2 negatively regulates monoallelic expression.

a schematic overview of how we implemented 2 generations of RNAi in animals that were heterozygous for reporter alleles. b animals were mounted in microfluidic devices for live imaging by confocal microscopy. Cartoons of the spectrum of phenotypes we would observe. c merged confocal images of the “torso” of control animals and met-2(RNAi) animals. The torso image is the section of the animal that fits into the field of view of our 40× objective and contains cells in the first three or four rings of the intestine. White scale bar on bottom left of control animal is 10 micrometers. d data from a small subset of genes in our genetic screen for negative regulators of aRMAE. Boxplots of intrinsic noise, a quantification of allele bias/aRMAE, calculated from the intestine cell allele expression values. Top of boxplot is 75th percentile, bottom of box is 25th percentile, line is median, top and bottom error bars are 90th and 10th percentile, respectively, and dots are 95th and 5th percentile. e intestine cells plotted by allele expression level from control and met-2(RNAi) animals. There was a significant increase in intrinsic noise for met-2 animals compared to control animals (0.00371); P < 0.05; Kruskal–Wallis One Way Analysis of Variance on Ranks followed by Dunn’s Procedure, N = 207 cells for control, N = 208 cells for met-2(RNAi), three independent experiments. See also Supplementary Information for additional statistical details and Supplemental Fig. 1, showing developmental events indicated by monoallelic expression patterns and detailing additional RNAi test results.