Tyrosine aminotransferase mutations enhance eak dauer and lifespan phenotypes.

(A) Effect of treatment of eri-3(mg408); eak-4(mg348) mutants with RNAi clones for daf-2, ftt-2, akt-1, daf-7, daf-9, daf-11, and tatn-1 on dauer arrest at 25°C. Bars represent mean percentage of dauers observed in two trials, and the error bars represent standard deviation. The empty vector RNAi vector was used as a negative control. (B) Enhanced dauer formation by eak-4(mg348);tatn-1(baf1) versus the eak-4(mg348) or tatn-1(baf1) mutations alone. ** p<0.001 for pairwise Fisher's exact test. (C) tatn-1 mutations enhance dauer arrest by eak-3(mg344), sdf-9(mg337), and hsd-1(mg337) mutants. ** p<0.001 for each double mutant compared to its respective eak single mutant by Fisher's exact test. (D) tatn-1 enhances eak-7(tm3188) dauer arrest. ** p<0.001 for comparisons between eak-7;tatn-1 and either tatn-1 or eak-7 alone. (E) tatn-1(baf1) extends the lifespan of both wild type and eak-7 worms. Shown are survival curves for wild type N2, tatn-1(baf1), eak-7(3188), and eak-7(3188); tatn-1(baf1), with error bars showing the 95% confidence intervals for each point. The mean survival for N2, tatn-1, eak-7, and eak-7;tatn-1 are 21.0, 23.0, 30.0, and 33.5 days, respectively. p<0.001 for all comparisons by log-rank test.