Fig. 6

Misexpression of wild-type (WT) and R220Q (tVE1) Aqp3a. (A) Construct used for the analysis of mosaic expression. Ubiquitous ef1a promoters drive the simultaneous expression of dsRed and sfGFP-Aqp3aR220Q. The construct is flanked by Tol2 repeats (T2) for integration in the genome. (B) Mosaic expression of the ef1a:DsRed, ef1a:sfGFP-Aqp3aR220Q on two sides of the same fish. The middle panel shows maximum intensity projections of clones in the epidermis (35-40 µm) (e) and xanthophore clones in the hypodermis (x). The right panel shows maximum intensity projections of muscle clones (m) (40-100 µm). The loss of iridophores and scattering of melanophores occur on the left side, where the large epidermal clone coincides with a large muscle clone. A large muscle clone alone or clones in xanthophores do not produce any effect on pigment cell organization on the right-hand side of the fish. (C) Expression of wild-type Aqp3a does not affect pigment patterning. (D,E) Transgenic fish expressing sfGFP-Aqp3a WT or R220Q under the basal epidermis-specific promoter krtt1c19e (D) and under the krt4 promoter (E). (F) Ratio of caudal fin length to standard body length (SL) in Tg(krt4:sfGFP-Aqp3a WT) and Tg(krt4:sfGFP-Aqp3aR220Q) fish. For each line, five to seven fish were measured. Mean±s.d. ***P<0.001, unpaired t-test. (G) Tg(krt4:sfGFP-Aqp3aR220Q) is expressed in fins of metamorphic fish. (H) The expression of krt4:sfGFP-Aqp3aR220Q is prominent in the cells of fin rays. Scale bars: 1 cm in E; 500 µm in B,C,G; 50 µm in H.