Timing requirements of Δ7-DA.

<p>Dauer, abnormal development and normal adult fates as a function of exposure times to 100 nM Δ7-DA. (A) <i>daf-9(dh6)</i> worms start responding to Δ7-DA at 15 hph and require an additional 12 h of Δ7-DA for normal adult development. Top, representative colored bars indicating the shift experiment: red bars indicate EtOH carrier and blue bars indicate Δ7-DA. Bottom, normal adult (blue), abnormal adult (yellow), and dauer (red) bars indicate the population fraction per time point. (B) Worms become refractory to Δ7-DA at 33 hph, the same time that they commit to dauer. N2 indicates worms shifted from unfavorable to favorable conditions as indicated in <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001306#pbio-1001306-g001" target="_blank">Figure 1C</a>, and points indicate dauer proportions (abnormal development is considered non-dauer in this panel). (C) Pulses of Δ7-DA indicate the minimal time necessary for normal development when added at 15 hph. Top, length of pulses. Bottom, normal adult (blue), abnormal development (yellow), and dauer (red) bars indicate the population fraction per time point. (D) Worms have no memory of previous exposure to Δ7-DA before the L1/L2 molt. Pie charts indicate proportions of dauers (red), abnormal development (yellow), and normal adults (blue) as a function of total amount of time exposed to Δ7-DA (<i>x</i>-axis) when exposed to Δ7-DA at different hours post-hatch (<i>y</i>-axis). <i>N</i>>100 for all time points.