Fig. 5. Reduction of mec-3 expression and touch sensitivity caused by ectopic expression of sem-4. (A-F) GFP fluorescence in tail cells of transformants containing different P_mec-7sem-4 constructs. These constructs were injected into the uIs22 strain, which contains an integrated mec-3::gfp reporter. When uIs22 was transformed only with the rol-6 marker, every animal had two fluorescent tail cells. Red boxes represent C2H2 zinc fingers; the number of the terminal residue in each fragment is given. Three stable lines are represented on each histogram and indicated by differently colored bars. (G) Effect of ectopic expression of different P_mec-7sem-4 constructs on touch sensitivity. The proportion of responding worms is a cumulative measure: worms that responded to four touches were considered to have responded to three, two, one and zero touches. The squares show the touch response of wild type (N2). The circles show the average touch response of transformants from two independent stable lines containing P_mec-7sem-4(Q321ocher). Each of the remaining curves represents the mean±s.d. The upright triangles show the touch response of transformants containing P_mec-7sem-4(H323Y). The inverted triangles show the touch response of transformants containing P_mec-7sem-4. The diamonds show the touch response of transformants containing P_mec-7sem-4(Q569ocher). The actual decrease in touch sensitivity produced by sem-4 is the difference between the circles and the inverted triangles.

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