The region enclosed by brackets indicates germ cells in the distal arm of the gonad. The brackets indicate germ cells that are desilenced in sig-2. The percentage of germline desilencing represents the fraction of animals exhibiting any detectable germline fluorescence out of the total number of animals scored. After extensive washing, DAPI was added and the slides were mounted with cover glass and sealed with fingernail polish. Chromosomes in diakinesis of meiotic prophase I are easily distinguishable in late stage oocytes, which also makes the transgene array directly observable.
Arrows indicate transgene arrays, as visualized by fluorescence microscopy.
During the experiments described in Figure 5, several sig-2 animals were observed in which increased numbers of DAPI signals were detected in diakinetic oocytes. This is indicates that synapsis of the homologous chromosomes to be either improperly engaged or not maintained, causing the homologues to be separated prematurely. The authors would like to thank Kelvin Whisenhunt and Suzanne Roper for their unerring support and humor throughout this summer. The authors would also like to thank the Hughes Science Initiatives for providing the majority of the funding through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Science Foundation and the Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Emory University.