Fig. 3

Retinoic acid receptors differentially impact liver development and laterality. (A–L) Lfabp expression at 72 hpf in RAR morphant embryos. Loss of RARs raraa, rarab, and rarga leads to a reduction in liver size (A–D and G–J), whereas loss of rargb causes embryos to develop bilateral livers (E, K and K2). Embryos simultaneously injected with a lower dose of all four RAR MOs develop small livers or none at all (F and L). (M–P) Embryos treated with the RARγ antagonist MM11253 over the time points given develop bilateral livers, confirming genetic knockdown data. (Q) FACS quantification of percent GFP+ cells in lfabp:GFP RAR morphant embryos reveals that rargb morphant embryos with bilateral livers contain significantly more GFP+ hepatocytes than control siblings. Embryos injected with raraa, rarab, rarga, and rargb in combination have roughly half as many GFP+ hepatocytes as control embryos. Scale bars: 100 µm.