Figure 3

UNC-7 and NCA functionally interact. (A) A snap shot of usual postures on plates of wild type (smooth sinusoidal), unc-7 (irregular body bends and kinks), nca(lf) (fainter and relaxed) and nca(lf); unc-7 (irregular body bends and kinks) animals. (B) nca(lf) rescued the unc-7 active zone defect. In wild type and nca(lf) animals, active zone marker GFP::UNC-10 (hpIs61) appeared round and evenly spaced. unc-7 animals showed more diffuse GFP::UNC-10 puncta, whereas GFP::UNC-10 puncta in nca(lf); unc-7 showed more evenly spaced and round morphology. Quantification of GFP::UNC-10 dorsal cord puncta (right panel) showed a significant decrease in the punctum number in unc-7 mutants when compared to wild type animals. Scale bar: 5 μm. (C) Representative traces of spontaneous mPSCs in animals with different genetic backgrounds (left panels). Quantification of mPSC frequency and amplitude is shown in the right panels. While mPSC frequency was reduced in both nca(lf) and nca(lf); unc-7 animals when compared to wild type animals, there was no significant difference in the mPSC amplitude by genotype. (D) nca(lf); unc-7 EPSCs were rescued back to unc-7 or wild type amplitude. Representative traces of evoked response from animals of different genetic background are shown. Quantification of EPSC amplitude was shown in the lower panel. nca(lf) showed significantly reduced EPSC amplitude when compared to wild type, while unc-7 mutation restored EPSC amplitude of nca(lf) to the wild type level. Student's t-test, *, p < 0.05; ***, p < 0.001.