Hope you can help!
I’m working with a gene that I suspect has a role in immunity. Unfortunately it is egl so the worms bag-out before they die on a pathogen. I ridded them of the germline with cdc-25.1/lin-60 (rnai), which prevents the bag-of-worms, but now they die with bursting vulvas. The egl phenotype is caused by defects in sex myoblast migration…some of the final attachments to the hypodermis don’t occur, so the whole structure is destabilized, which I think might be causing the bursting.
I’m wondering if there’s a relatively innocuous mutant out there that would get rid of the vulva (vulvaless) so I wouldn’t have to worry about the bursting issue. I’ve done immunity assays with males, but want to stick to hermaphrodites if possible. I’m reading the vulva literature, but I thought there may be some people in the know on here.
Thanks.