Research Paper Volume 5, Issue 4 pp 276—287

Figure 1. Loss of Membranes and Nuclei in the Aging Adult Epidermis.

(A) Schematic of the ventral adult abdominal epidermis (reprinted with kind permission by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press from [56]). Red frame, section of the pleura analyzed by immunofluorescence; Blue line, approximate location of TEM cross-sections. (B) Quantification of epidermal deterioration in control w1118 flies with age (n ≥ 10). See C-F for a representative example of each morphology class. (C-F) Control (w;UAS-DsRed2-Nuc2/CyO; NP2108-GAL4/TM6C) epidermal whole mounts of different ages expressing nuclear DsRed2-Nuc (red) and labeled with anti-Fasciclin III (green). Bar, 20 μm. C, 1 d. D, 3 d. E, 14 d. F, 42 d. Green channel intensity elevated in F for visualization of weakly-labeled membranes. All comparisons between different time points were significantly different using the Chi square test (p < 0.05). (G) Quantification of nuclear numbers in epidermal whole mounts of flies of different ages bearing NP2108-GAL4 and UAS-DsRed2-Nuc (n = 7 for 1 d and 14 d; n = 8 for 3 d and n = 3 for 42 d). Asterisks, significant comparisons by Single-Factor Anova (p < 0.05); n. s., not significant.