Figure 1

Functional assay of the r-bursicon heterodimer in ligated flies. Newly emerged flies were ligated between the head and thorax at emergence. These flies with unsclerotized cuticle at 1 h after neck-ligation were injected with 0.5 μl of cell culture transfected with blank pcDNA 3.1 vector as a sham control (a) or with the purified r-bursicon α (b) or r-bursicon β (c) or r-bursicon heterodimer expressed in insect High Five™ cells (e) and in mammalian HEK293 cells (f). A CNS homogenate (0.5 CNS equivalent/fly) from newly emerged flies was used as a positive control (d). The arrow indicates the area with the unsclerotized cuticle (light color) in control (a-c) and the sclerotized cuticle (darkened) in the animals injected with r-bursicon heterodimer.