An Integrated Strategy to Study Muscle Development and Myofilament Structure in Caenorhabditis elegans
Figure 6
Sarcopenia in aging nematodes.
Synchronized animals were observed for irregularities in filament organization with age using the GFP-tagged MYO-3 marker strain RW1596. Fluorescence images are shown for L4/young adult (A), 1-day adult (B), 2-day adult (C), and 3-day adult (D) animals. As the filament structure is nicely organized in L4/young adult animals (arrow), both the severity of myofilament disorganization (asterisk) as well as the percentage of animals affected increase during aging (E). To preclude any artifacts caused by GFP itself, we visualized disorganized filaments in 3-day adult RW1596 animals using polarized light (F, asterisk). No defects are visible in 3-day adult N2 animals (G, arrow), indicating an early onset of sarcopenia in RW1596 muscle filaments.