Fig. 4. BEC-1 and LGG-1 are expressed in the nervous system. (A) A non-functional translational fusion BEC-1::GFP reporter accumulates in the PVM of a wild-type animal. Both cell body and processes (arrowhead) of this cell are GFP positive. VNC, ventral nerve cord. (B) BEC-1 expression in the nerve ring (bracket). (C) LGG-1::GFP, which lacks the C terminus of LGG-1 (see Materials and Methods), is expressed in PLML. (D) LGG-1::GFP accumulation in the ventral nerve cord. (E) CeTor, which encodes a kinase that downregulates autophagy, is expressed in all neurons. Bracket indicates the nerve ring. (F-H) Nomarski, fluorescence and merged images, respectively, showing the expression of a non-integrated, translational fusion (functional) autophagosome marker GFP::LGG-1 (Meléndez et al., 2003) in a PVC interneuron of a deg-3(u662) animal. The GFP-positive punctate areas are inferred to label preautophagosomal and autophagosomal structures (Meléndez et al., 2003). In this specimen, the PVC interneuron is at the early stage of degeneration. Note that GFP becomes gradually diluted as degeneration progresses. The nearly exclusive expression of GFP in PVC is due to a mosaicism of the non-integrated marker.