{In worms that recovered from 4 d of L1 starvation, we also found that a significant portion of the mir-71(lf) mutants displayed egg-laying defects and overproliferating or precociously reflexed gonads. We further examined worms recovering from 4 d of L1 starvation and found that around 90% of the mir-71(lf) mutants displayed retarded vulval precursor cell (VPC) division, compared with less than 5% in wild type (Fig. 4A). We found that the 3′UTRs of several genes of the InsR pathway, including unc-31, age-1, pdk-1, akt-2, and sgk-1, contain predicted miR-71 targeting sites (as predicted by TargetScan and mirWIP). (H and I) Fluorescence images (H) and statistical data (I) showing that the M cell diveded in fed animals but remained undivided in 4-, 7-, or 11-d–starved L1 wild-type and mir-71(lf) worms. (E) Fluorescence and DIC images showing that the unc-31 3′UTR reporter was repressed in mir-71(+)worms (2/2 transgenic lines) but not in mir-71(lf) worms (4/4 transgenic lines). We found that the poor survival rate of daf-16(mu86)(lf) was further decreased by mir-71(lf) (Fig. 2C), consistent with the notion that a portion of miR-71 activities regulate genes that act in parallel to UNC-31–mediated InsR/PI3K signaling for long-term survival during L1 diapause.}
