IN SITU DIFFERENTIATION OF IRIDOPHORE CRYSTALLOTYPES UNDERLIES ZEBRAFISH STRIPING
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ABSTRACT: Skin color patterns are ubiquitous in nature, evolve rapidly, and impact social behavior, predator avoidance, and protection from ultraviolet irradiation. A leading model system for vertebrate skin patterning is the zebrafish; its alternating blue stripes and yellow interstripes depend on guanine crystal-containing cells called iridophores that reflect light. It was suggested that the zebrafish’s alternating color pattern arises from a single type of iridophore migrating differentially to stripes and interstripes. When we tracked iridophores, however, we found they did not migrate between stripes and interstripes but instead differentiated and proliferated in place based on their micro-environment. RNA-sequencing analysis further revealed that stripe and interstripe iridophores had different transcriptomic states with many differences in gene expression and pathway enrichment, while cryogenic scanning electron microscopy and micro-X-ray diffraction identified different guanine crystal organizations and responsiveness to norepinephrine, all indicating that stripe and interstripe iridophores are different cell types. Based on these results, we present a new model of skin patterning in zebrafish in which distinct iridophore crystallotypes containing specialized, physiologically responsive, subcellular organelles arise in stripe and interstripe zones by in situ differentiation. In this model, pattern phenotype depends not only on interactions among pigment cells that affect their arrangements, but also on factors that specify subcellular organization and physiological responsiveness of specialized organelles.
ORGANISM(S): Danio rerio
PROVIDER: GSE144734 | GEO | 2020/10/27
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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