Fig. 1

bonaparte and poppy mutants have fewer metamorphic melanophores, xanthophores, and iridophores.

(A) Wild-type adult zebrafish. (B) bonaparte mutants lack melanophore and xanthophore stripes on the body but retain stripes in the caudal and anal fins and exhibit a normal pattern of scale melanophores. A few residual iridophores are evident near the horizontal myoseptum. Internal viscera are partially visible owing to the absence of melanophores and iridophores. (C) poppy mutants retain partial stripes of melanophores on the body as well as the fins. (D) Time course illustrating the increasingly severe deficit of melanophores (means±SE) in bonaparte homozygotes as compared to phenotypically wild-type bonaparte/+ siblings followed daily between 16 and 36 days post-fertilization (dpf; n = 1 to 3 fish for each genotype across all days). (E,F) Images of individual wild-type (bonaparte/+) and bonaparte larvae from the onset of pigment pattern metamorphosis (here, 12 dpf) through completion of the adult pigment pattern (36 dpf). bonaparte mutants lack early appearing metamorphic iridophores (arrow in E at 12 dpf), but develop dispersed metamorphic melanophores (arrowheads in (E) and (F) at 16 dpf). Subsequently, bonaparte mutants do not develop nascent adult stripes as in wild-type (arrowhead in (E) at 20 dpf) and exhibit only residual clusters of melanophores on the flank (arrowhead in (F) at 36 dpf) when wild-type fish exhibit fully formed adult stripes.