Progression of RAD-51 Focus Formation and Removal in Wild-Type and Meiotic Mutants

<div><p>(A) From top to bottom, gonads from wild-type (N2), <i>him-8, msh-5,</i> and <i>him-8 msh-5</i> worms are shown. In wild-type (top), RAD-51 foci appear in the transition zone and disappear in early pachytene. In all mutant conditions, RAD-51 focus formation begins in the transition zone, but persists throughout early pachytene, only disappearing at the very end of the gonad in late pachytene. Scale bar, 50 μm.</p><p>(B) Quantitation of RAD-51 focus formation in wild-type and mutant conditions. Gonads were automatically divided into six equally sized regions, and nuclei assigned to each region based on their location. Graphs display box-whisker plots of focus numbers. The <i>x</i> axis indicates bins of equal length along the gonad; the <i>y</i> axis indicates the number of RAD-51 foci observed in a nucleus. The center horizontal line of each box indicates the median value; the box top and bottom indicate the first and third quartile values; the lines above and below the boxes extend to the entire range of measurements. Number of nuclei observed for each case are indicated at upper right.</p>