Project description:Animal pigment patterns play important roles in behavior and, in many species, red coloration serves as an honest signal of individual quality in mate choice. Among Danio fishes, some species develop erythrophores, pigment cells that contain red ketocarotenoids, whereas other species, like zebrafish (D. rerio) only have yellow xanthophores. Here, we use pearl danio (D. albolineatus) to assess the developmental origin of erythrophores and their mechanisms of differentiation. We show that erythrophores in the fin of D. albolineatus share a common progenitor with xanthophores and maintain plasticity in cell fate even after differentiation. We further identify the predominant ketocarotenoids that confer red coloration to erythrophores and use reverse genetics to pinpoint genes required for the differentiation and maintenance of these cells. Our analyses are a first step towards defining the mechanisms underlying the development of erythrophore-mediated red coloration in Danio and reveal striking parallels with the mechanism of red coloration in birds.
Project description:Within the overall project, we performed a set of microarrays to validate RNAseq data. In this data set, we compare the expression data of song nuclei to the optical tectrum dissected from adult canaries housed at long day cycles to identify nuclei specific genes.
Project description:Within the overall project, we performed a set of microarrays to validate RNAseq data (submitted to EBI: PRJEB4463). In this data set, we compare the expression data of song nuclei to the optical tectrum dissected from adult canaries housed at long day cycles to identify nuclei specific genes. 18 total S. canaria samples were analyzed, 6 HVC samples, 5 RA samles and 7 Entopallium samples. The differential expression was analyzed using the group-wise exhaustive analysis with False Discovery Rate set to zero and 10-significant probe minimum coverage, HVc/RA compared to entopallium samples. ChipInspector carries out significance analysis on the single probe level (directly generated from the CEL files). Thus, normalized probe set level data for individual Sample records are not available. Processed data files containing transcripts and the fold changes are available on Series record.
