Figure 4

Treatments that block autophagy (and dramatically reduce neurodegeneration in other forms of necrotic neurodegeneration in C. elegans) have a reproducible but small effect in nematode excitotoxicity. A) A mutation in unc-51 shows a moderate effect on nematode excitotoxicity. *p < 0.05 ; ***p < 0.01 B) Treatment with the autophagy-blocking drug 3MA has a moderate effect on nematode excitotoxicity. ***p < 0.01 C) Independent repetition of the experiment shown in B with the addition of epistasis analysis. The data shows that the only reproducible effect of autophagy blockade is in L3. Although at this stage the combined effect of autophagy blockade and dapk-1 correlates with a model of independent action of these two factors, the moderate extent of effects limits the strength of such a conclusion.