During the late L3 through early L4 stages, the number of uterine cells that fluoresced as a result of either the kuIs29 transgenic array was essentially the same in an
egl-13 mutant or wild-type background . This spans the time from when cell fates are being specified among the VU intermediate precursor population to just prior to the final round of uterine division (when pi cell daughters normally divide and maintenance-defective cell daughters would abnormally divide). However, it was also noted that
egl-13 mutant animals sometimes contained extra cells with weak fluorescence during the late L4 stage. In kuIs29 control lines during the early-mid-L4 stage, an average of six to seven fluorescent uterine nuclei per side was observed. This is about the range expected for the daughters of three cells on each side plus or minus the AC nucleus (which may become fluorescent at this early stage and has an equal chance of moving to the left or right in the process of fusing with the utse). An average close to 6.5 GFP cells per side persisted through the mid-L4 and late L4 stages, with the
uv1 nuclei often showing brighter fluorescence than the utse nuclei. By contrast, the
egl-13 (
ku194) and
egl-13 (
ty3) alleles revealed the presence of roughly two additional GFP positive uterine nuclei at the early-mid-L4 stage and four additional GFP positive nuclei at the mid-L4 stage. Also, significantly fainter yet detectable nuclei were noted in the uterine-vulval and surrounding uterine regions in
egl-13 mutants.