Rho signaling in the adult rectal epithelium causes tail swelling and changes cell morphology.

<p>Inhibition of Rho in a subset of rectal epithelial cells using the Rho inhibitor C3 Transferase expressed from the <i>bus-1</i> promoter (<i>bus-1p</i>::C3T) significantly decreased the percentage of Dar animals (A). Expression of RHO-1* in adult animals using a heat shock-inducible promoter triggers the Dar response (B and D), in the absence of heat shock animals expressing hs::RHO-1* were wild type (B and C). Cell specific expression of RHO-1* in the rectal epithelial cells (<i>egl-5p</i>::RHO-1*); but not in neurons (n::RHO-1*) or muscle (muscle::RHO-1*), also resulted in tail swelling (B and E). Rectal opening is indicated with an arrow. § indicates 0%. Expression of mCherry together with RHO- 1* in the rectal epithelium using the 1.3 Kb <i>egl-5</i> promoter fragment (J and K) or infection of animals expressing mCherry from the same promoter (H and I) results in changes in the morphology of the epithelial cells when compared to wild-type controls (F and G). Rectal opening is indicated with an arrow. Rectal epithelial cell boundaries are indicated with a dotted line. P values between 0.05 and 0.001 (*), and P values of 0.001 or less (**).