Figure 8. Loss of cript (tm430) decreases dendrite branch number in vivo and results in a mechanosensory defect; rescue with hCRIPT. A, Representative full body image of PVD neuron labeled with GFP in the WT (N2 Bristol strain) young adult (L4 stage + 1 d old). B, Schematic of PVD neuron and its primary (1˚), secondary (2˚), and tertiary (3˚) branches used for quantification. C, Representative images of the PVD neuron labeled with GFP of indicated genotypes in the tail region used for quantification at the young adult stage (L4 stage + 1 d old). Gaps in the dendritic tree of cript (tm430) worms are noted with “v”. D, Quantification of the number of primary (1˚), secondary (2˚), and tertiary (3˚) branches in indicated strains (n ≥ 10 per genotype). Analyst was blinded to genotype during quantification. We found that cript (tm430) mutants have a significant decrease in secondary (**p < 0.01; post hoc test following one-way ANOVA; F(3,37) = 6.781; p = 0.0009) and tertiary (**p < 0.01; post hoc test following one-way ANOVA; F(3,37) = 6.365; p = 0.0014) branch number. This was completely rescued by overexpression of the human ortholog of CRIPT in the nervous system using the unc-119 promoter (Pneuron), which also increased the number of primary dendrites compared to WT animals (*p < 0.05); post hoc test following one-way ANOVA; F(3,37) = 3.569; p = 0.0232). E, WT, cript (tm430), mec-3 (e1338), and cript (tm430); mec-4 (tu253) animals were scored for their response to touch. Average of three independent experiments is shown. Experiments were all completed with analyst blinded to genotype. We found that cript (tm430); mec-4 (tu253) animals show a synthetic touch defect (**p <0.01 according to a post hoc test following a one-way ANOVA). We also confirmed that mec-3 (CB1338) animals are touch defective compared to WT counterparts (***p < 0.005 according to a post hoc test following a one-way ANOVA; F(4,10) = 11.93; p = 0.0008). F, Touch defect is suppressed in cript (tm430); mec-4 (tu253) animals by overexpression of the human ortholog of CRIPT in the nervous system using the unc-119 promoter (Pneuron::hCRIPT) in four independent extrachromasomal array lines (**p <0.01 according to a post hoc test following a one-way ANOVA when compared to nontransgenic counterparts). One strain (line 1) fully rescued the touch defect when compared to WT in a post hoc test following a one-way ANOVA (F(8,18) = 26.45; p < 0.0001).