Graded BMP signals modulate yellow and red color in fishes impacting adult pigment pattern and behavior.

ABSTRACT: Among the most interesting adult traits are those with roles in animal communication. Yet developmental mechanisms by which genes drive cell behaviors in building the final forms of such traits are rarely known. In this context, pigmentation is useful because colors and patterns often provide signals in mate choice, predation avoidance and other behaviors and pigmentation is unusually accessible to observation and manipulation. Here we focus on some of the most prominent signaling colors-red, orange and yellow-and show how BMP signaling at the cellular level allows for a very different kind of signal at the organismal level. Using pearl danio, Danio albolineatus, we find that spatially and temporally graded BMP signals promote development of yellow/orange xanthophores over red eryth

SUBMITTER: Huang D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12710766 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature