Worm Breeder's Gazette 2(2): 39

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.

Touch Sensitivity

J.E. Sulston

Figure 1

Figure 2

The lateral microtubule-containing neurons run like this on each 
side.
[See Figure 1]
Destruction of the anterior/posterior pair with the laser microbeam 
greatly reduces anterior/posterior touch sensitivity (assayed by 
stroking lightly with a mounted eyebrow hair).
Destruction on just one side does not give consistent results.  
Destruction of other neurons has not given reproducible loss of touch 
sensitivity so far.
The collection of touch insensitive (tin) mutants suffered in the 
great thaw of '75, but thanks to multiple isolates all but one of the 
original eight genes are still represented.  Nomarski shows:- in tin-1 
V and tin - 3 IV the processes and cell bodies of the microtubule 
neurons are absent or displaced; in tin - 2 X the processes are normal 
but the cell bodies are disoriented; in tin - 4 X, tin - 6 I and tin - 
7 X both appear normal.
[See Figure 2]

Figure 1

Figure 2