Figure 4. NCA-1, UNC-80, and UNC-79 Are Expressed in the Nervous System, Enriched at Nonsynaptic Regions Along Axons (A) A transcriptional GFP reporter driven by the
nca-1 promoter (left panels) or
unc-80 promoter (right panels) is active in neurons in the nerve ring (NR), and ventral nerve cord (VNC) motoneurons. Activity of the
nca-1 promoter is also seen in the HSN neuron whereas the
unc-80 promoter has activity in the vulval muscles (VM). (B) An antibody against NCA-1 showed specific staining (arrowheads) in the nerve ring (NR) and along nerve cords in wild-type (top left panel) animals that was absent in
nca-1(
tm1851) deletion mutants (bottom left panel). Similarly, anti-RFP antibody showed specific immunoreactivity in the nerve ring (NR) of UNC-80::RFP (hpIs98) expressing animal (top middle panel) but not in wild-type animals not carrying the transgene (bottom middle panel). * ns: nonspecific staining persisted in negative controls where animals do not express NCA-1 or UNC-80::RFP protein (out of the focal plane for the
nca-1 panel). An antibody against UNC-79 showed specific and similar staining at the nerve ring in wild-type animals (right top panel) that disappeared in
unc-79 mutants (right bottom panel). (C) Wild-type animals were co-stained with anti-NCA-1 antibody (red) and anti-UNC-10 (green). (D)
unc-80;hpIs98 animals co-stained with anti-RFP antibody (red) and anti-UNC-10 (green) showed poor colocalization. Scale bar: 5um.