Fig. 5
fln-2a/e/s/t/r/u/v/w(lf) mutations enhance pharyngeal grinding and digestion of bacteria, reducing pharyngeal infections and intestinal bacterial colonization. a Fluorescence images and colocalization analysis of GFP-tagged the longest FLN-2 proteins and Congo red staining for marking the pharyngeal cuticle. b Schematic diagram of the C. elegans pharynx55. The functional divisions of the pharynx are shown from left to right: the buccal cavity, procorpus, metacorpus, isthmus, and terminal bulb. c Scoring of pharyngeal widespread infection of wild-type N2, fln-2(ot611), fln-2(shc156), fln-2(shc117), eat-2(ad1113), and fln-2(ot611);eat-2(ad1113) mutants fed with E. coli expressing GFP using fluorescence microscopy. Animals used in this experiment were at the Day 10 stage. The right side shows examples of pharyngeal infection with OP50-GFP E. coli. d Fluorescence images of wild-type N2, fln-2(ot611), fln-2(shc156), and fln-2(shc117)mutants after being transferred to plates seeded with E. coli expressing GFP at the Day 5 stage, and the relative fluorescence intensity of uncultured bacteria in the intestine. e Representative fluorescence images of FISH staining of wild-type N2, fln-2(ot611), fln-2(shc156), fln-2(shc117), and eat-2(ad1113) at Day 12 stage. The right side shows the relative fluorescence intensity. f DIC images of Day 12 wild-type N2, fln-2(ot611), atg-18(gk378), and fln-2(ot611); fln-2(ot611) double mutants after soaking in blue food dye for 3 hours. The right side shows the percentage of animals with intact intestinal barrier compared to the total number of animals. The specific information is marked below the bar graph in the form of N(n), where N represents the total number and n represents the number of experiments. The scale bar is 100 μm and experiments were repeated three times independently. p-Values were determined using one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparison test. **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; and n.s., not significant.
