Fig. 5

Behavioral escape responses and peripheral axon morphology of wild-type and Wld^S larvae are indistinguishable. (A,A′) 48 hpf wild-type larvae touched on the left side of the head (A) escape to the right (A′). (B,B′) This behavior is similar in 48 hpf Wld^S larvae. (C) Quantification of turn angle in wild-type and Wld^S larvae. Pie chart displays a cartoon fish turning 193° in the opposite direction to the touch stimulus. On the right, a bar graph shows that wild type (blue bar, n=9) and Wld^S (red bar, n=24) both turn an average of 193° (P=0.9676). (D) Quantification of escape response duration in wild type and Wld^S. Wild-type duration (blue bar, n=9) was not significantly different from Wld^S duration (red bar, n=24) (P=0.4624). (E,F) Confocal image stack projections of representative 54 hpf wild-type (E, n=15) and Wld^S (F, n=15) peripheral axons. Single neurons were traced in three dimensions (see Materials and methods). (G) Quantification of the number of nodes (branch points) and branch ends in wild-type (blue bars) and Wld^S (red bars) axons were not significantly different (nodes, P=0.3260; ends, P=0.3123). (H) Quantification of total length and surface area of wild-type (blue bars) and Wld^S (red bars) axons revealed no significant difference between the two groups (length, P=0.6182; surface area, P=0.7416). Error bars indicate s.e.m. Scale bars: 50 μm.