<i>pat-2</i> and <i>cdc-42</i> mutants are defective in apoptotic cell removal.

<p>(A) <i>pat-2</i> loss of function does not affect the number of cell death events. Embryonic cell deaths that occurred in the 200 min following the first cell death (up to about the 1.5-fold stage) were followed in wild-type (white rhombi) and <i>pat-2(st567)</i> (black squares) embryos. The y axis shows the total number of cell death events at the different time points shown on the x axis. The data shown are the average for two embryos for each genotype. The times corresponding to the comma and 1.5-fold stages are indicated. (B–C) Cell corpses in <i>pat-2(st567)</i> (B) and <i>cdc-42 (gk388)</i> (C) mutants persist longer than in the wild-type. The persistence of cell corpses that appeared 360–410 min after the first cleavage was recorded using four-dimensional Nomarski microscopy. The y axis shows the percentage of cell corpses that persisted for the time indicated on the x axis. Forty corpses were analyzed for each genotype. The data of wild-type (white bars), <i>pat-2(st567)</i> (gray bars); wild-type; <i>Ex[P_pat-2pat-2Δcyto::gfp]</i> (black bars) and <i>pat-2(st567); Ex[P_pat-2pat-2Δcyto::gfp]</i> (slashed bars) are shown in (B) and those of the wild-type (white bars) and <i>cdc-42(gk388)</i> (gray bars) in (C).