Fig. 2

Sclerotization is nearly complete by 3 h in wildtype flies whereas rk mutant flies and flies with ubiquitous knockdown of rk express defective sclerotization up to 48 h postemergence. a Visualization of soluble cuticular proteins extracted from wings at 0 h, 1 h, 2 h, 3 h, 6 h, 8 h, 12 h, and 24 h postemergence in control (heterozygous rk⁴/rk⁺ flies, left panel) and in transheterozygous rk mutant (rk⁴/rk¹, right panel) flies. b Pictures of representative silver-stained gel of soluble cuticular proteins extracted from wings (left) or abdominal epidermis (right) of control (rk>+) and rk knockdown (rk>tBur) flies at 3 (upper panel) and 48 (lower panel) hours after emergence. Red rectangles indicate the bands that were quantified in c. c Intensity of bands marked in b for three separate experiments; short black horizontal lines indicate the median. Genotypes are coded as described in Fig. 1b. Different letters indicate statistically significant differences (one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey HSD, p < 0.01). For quantification of other bands (indicated in Additional file 1: Figure S2B), see Additional file 1: Figure S5