Fig. 7

Suppressing FAK in miR-27 morphants partially rescues cartilage defects. (A) Three categories of representative head cartilage phenotypes in 4dpf old embryos injected with MO-27, along with either standard control morpholino MO-ctl or translation blocking MO-ptk2 at the single-cell stage. Ventral views of head cartilage stained with alcian blue. Ceratohyal cartilage indicated by an arrowhead and Meckel's cartilage indicated with an arrow. (B) Embryos were injected with 2 ng or 4 ng MO-27 either co-injected with 3 ng MO-ctl or MO-ptk2. Percentage of embryos with the corresponding head cartilage phenotypes (CH1-CH3) at 4dpf. The distribution of phenotypes in MO-ptk2 and MO-27 injected embryos are compared to those injected with MO-ctl and MO-27. ***p<0.0001 (Chi-squared goodness of fit test), n=40–60 embryos. Data are from three independent experiments. (C) Analysis of cartilage positions. Ventral view of head cartilages in wild-type embryos stained with alcian blue. A represents the distance between the palataquadrate (pq) and ceratohyal (ch) cartilage joints. B represents the distance from the anterior joint of the two ceratohyals to the baseline shown by a dashed line. C represents the distance from the anterior end of Meckel's cartilage (m) to the baseline. (D) (C-B)/A ratio was calculated for quantitative analysis of anterior-posterior extension of the ceratohyal cartilage. This ratio increases as the ceratohyal position extends posteriorly instead of anteriorly. Percentage increase of the (C-B)/A ratio in MO-27 and MO-ctl injected embryos or embryos co-injected with both MO-27 and MO-ptk2 compared to the ratio in wild-type embryos. Error bars represent SEM. n=40–60 embryos, **p<0.01 (student's t-test).