Figure 5

The expression of Fus/Caz disrupts the arrangement of motor neurons in the VNC. (A) A VNC from the third instar larva expressing mGFP by OK371-Gal4 was stained with nuclear dye Hoechst 33342 (blue NU signal). The GFP signal indicates intact motor neurons. T1-T3 indicates the three thoracic neuromeres and A1-A8 indicates the eight abdominal neuromeres. (B) Shown here are the well-organized segmental motor neurons of the abdominal neuromeres A1-A5. The organization of motor neurons is used as a model to examine the neuronal toxicity of Fus/Caz in this study. (C-E) VNCs from third instar larvae co-expressing mGFP with Myc-tagged Fus, FusR521G, or FusΔ32 by OK371-Gal4 were stained with an anti-Myc antibody and Hoechst. Fus and FusR521G disrupted the organization of motor neurons in A1-A5 neuromeres, but FusΔ32 did not. (F) A VNC from larva coexpressing mGFP with HA-Caz was stained with an anti-HA antibody and Hoechst 33342. The expression of Caz severely disrupted the arrangement of motor neurons in A1-A5 neuromeres. (G-H) VNCs from larvae coexpressing mGFP with Myc-FusNES or Myc-FusΔ32NLS were stained with the anti-Myc antibody and Hoechst 33342. (I) A graph of the average moving distance of the third instar larvae expressing the indicated proteins and traveling over 30 sec (n = 15 male larvae scored for each group). Each larva was tested 3 times. The OK371-Gal4 was used as the driver.