Worm Breeder's Gazette 1(2): 18
These abstracts should not be cited in bibliographies. Material contained herein should be treated as personal communication and should be cited as such only with the consent of the author.
(a) The patches of yellow fluorescence in the pharynx, previously thought to be autofluorescence, are in fact specifically formaldyhyde induced. The color rules out dopamine, and is consistent with serotonin. In the mutant cat-1 X two yellow cell bodies can be seen in the anterior bulb, but no processes are visible; in the wild type the cell bodies are usually invisible, but beaded chains can be seen stretching back along the isthmus. Thus, the gene cat-1 X seems to be involved in loading vesicles not only with dopamine but also with some other amine (possibly serotonin). Cat-2 II does not affect the yellow FIF. The distribution of the FIF allows us to identify the neurosecretory motor neurons (Albertson and Thomson, Proc. Roy. Soc., in press) as being responsible for it. (b) The dopaminergic varicosities in the ventral cord are lost when both the dopaminergic cell bodies in the posterior lateral ganglia are eliminated. This can be achieved by using the laser microbeam, or by selecting suitable individuals from the mutant E1414, unc-85 II ( Horvitz and Sulston, this newsletter). The absence of a single cell leads to a reduction in the number of varicosities. So both cells are T-shaped, sending processes anteriorly and posteriorly along the ventral cord.