Fig. 3

(A) Dot plot depicts conserved and enriched InterPro protein domains in BM zone components. Dots are sized according to number of domain occurrences within BM genes (count ratio; table S3). (B) Domain-based interactome for human BM zone genes. Nodes represent BM and CSI proteins and are sized according to network degree score. Lines connecting nodes are color-coded to indicate the number of shared domains. Black and red arrowheads highlight hub proteins with the highest degree and betweenness centrality scores, respectively (table S11). (C) Domain structure of the hub protein HSPG2/perlecan. Bar chart shows the number of BM zone proteins sharing specific domains with HSPG2. (D) Left: Representative confocal sum projections of C. elegans gonadal BM LAMC/LAM-2::mNG in control versus HSPG2/unc-52 RNA interference (RNAi)–treated 72-hour adult animals (n = 10 animals examined each; additional supporting images are available on figshare: 10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5662348). Top right: Middle-plane confocal z-slice of HSPG2/UNC-52::mNG in an adult animal. Yellow arrowhead indicates fluorescence signal in the gonadal BM, and asterisks denote strong signal in the body wall muscle BM and muscle-epidermal attachment sites. Bottom right: Quantification of gonadal BM UNC-52::mNG levels throughout postembryonic development (n ≥ 13 for each developmental stage; fluorescence was not detected between early L1 and early L4 stages). Scale bar, 25 μm. For boxplots, edges indicate the 25th and 75th percentiles, the line in the box represents the median, and whiskers mark the minimum and maximum values. a.u., arbitrary units.