Tight junction protein 1a regulates pigment cell organisation during zebrafish colour patterning
- Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Germany
Abstract
Zebrafish display a prominent pattern of alternating dark and light stripes generated by the precise positioning of pigment cells in the skin. This arrangement is the result of coordinated cell movements, cell shape changes and the organisation of pigment cells during metamorphosis. Iridophores play a crucial part in this process by switching between the dense form of the light stripes and the loose form of the dark stripes. Adult schachbrett (sbr) mutants exhibit delayed changes in iridophore shape and organisation caused by truncations in Tight Junction Protein 1a (ZO-1a). In sbr mutants, the dark stripes are interrupted by dense iridophores invading as coherent sheets. Immuno-labelling and chimeric analyses indicate that Tjp1a is expressed in dense iridophores, but down-regulated in the loose form. Tjp-1a is a novel regulator of cell shape changes during colour pattern formation and the first cytoplasmic protein implicated in this process.
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Ethics
Animal experimentation: Animal experimentation: All animal experiments were performed in accordance with the rules of the State of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The protocol for ENU mutagenesis was approved by the Regierungspräsidium Tübingen (Aktenzeichen: 35/9185.81-5/Tierversuch-Nr. E 1/09).
Copyright
© 2015, Fadeev et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Tight junction protein 1a regulates pigment cell organisation during zebrafish colour patterning
eLife 4:e06545.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06545
