Figure 4

Different phenotypic series. Quantification of cuticle defects using different concentrations of dsRNA in the SB (A-C) and the black strains (D-F), panels B and E are taken from Figure 2. (A) Injection of 0.3 μg/μl dsRNA in the SB strain results in a similar phenotype as with 1 μg/μl (B) albeit with lower penetrance. (C) Knock-down in SB with 3 μg/μl dsRNA results in empty eggs (i.e. empty egg shells without cuticles in the cuticle preparation), which are indicator of severe defects which lead to the abortion of embryogenesis prior to cuticle formation. (D) RNAi in the black strain with 0.3 μg/μl leads to a similar phenotypic pattern as with 1 μg/μl (E). Besides a mild background of pleiotropic defects, loss or malformation of the labrum are the most frequent phenotype. Phenotypes, where the labrum is the only affected structure is represented by the bar labeled with “Only Lr”. (F) Injection of 3 μg/μl Tc-importin α1 dsRNA leads to a similar portion of cuticles with an affected labrum accompanied with an increased portion of pleiotropic defects. As consequence, the fraction of cuticles that have labrum-only malformations drops to 30% although the labrum remains the most frequently affected structure.