Figure 2

CNG-3 functions in AWC for short-term adaptation responses, and tax-2 ^−/− mutants that overexpress TAX-4 are defective for short term adaptation to AWC-sensed odors. (A) Chemotaxis assays were performed on wildtype animals, cng-3(jh113) that express the cDNA encoding CNG-3 under an AWC specific promoter [(p)AWC::CNG-3], and also cng-3(jh113) mutant animals. Wildtype animals and cng-3(jh113) mutant animals expressing the extrachromosomal array Ex[(p)AWC::CNG-3] both exhibited significant differences in the chemotaxis index after 30 min odor exposure as compared with non-exposed animals (paired t-test, *p < 0.05). Whereas cng-3(jh113) mutant animals exhibited no significant change in the chemotaxis index when comparing exposed animals to that of non-exposed animals (paired t-test, p = 0.1). (B) Chemotaxis assays were performed on wildtype animals, cng-3(jh113); Ex[(p)AWC::CNG-3] animals and cng-3(jh113) mutant animals to the AWC sensed odor butanone. Wildtype animals and cng-3(jh113); Ex[(p)AWC::CNG-3] animals both exhibited significant differences in the chemotaxis index after 30 min odor exposure as compared with non-exposed animals (paired t-test, *p < 0.05), and cng-3(jh113) mutant animals exhibited no significant difference in chemotaxis index between exposed and non-exposed animals (paired t-test, p = 0.9). (C) Wildtype animals and also tax-2(p691); Ex[(p)AWC::TAX-2 OE] transgenic animals exhibit significant differences in chemotaxis after 30 mins odor exposure as compared with unexposed controls (paired t-test, *p < 0.05). The tax-2(p691); Ex[(p)tax-4::TAX-4 OE] animals can detect benzaldehyde similar to wildtype animals but fail to adapt to the odor after 30 mins of odor exposure (paired t-test, p = 0.4). For (A–C) Black bars indicate unexposed animals and gray bars indicate odor exposed animals. All assays were repeated 5 times on separate days. For all graphs, error bars represent S.E.M.