Fig. 3

Morpholino-mediated knockdown of dnm2 and dnm2-like expression results in morphological changes.(A) Splice targeting morpholinos were designed against intron-exon boundaries within the dnm2 and dnm2-like genes. (B) Knockdown in morpholino injected embryos was verified using RT-PCR. Embryos were injected with a scrambled control morpholino (Ctl MO; 0.3 mM), dnm2 MO (0.3 mM), or dnm2-like MO (0.1 mM). Arrows indicate the alternative splice product induced by dnm2 MO and dnm2-like MO injection. dnm2 MO injection also resulted in an additional higher weight band due to activation of a cryptic splice site (*). (C) At 2 dpf, dnm2 MO-injected embryos exhibit shortened body length, upward curled tails, pericardial and yolk edema, and reduced head size when compared to control morpholino injected embryos. By contrast, embryos injected with dnm2-like MO have small muscle compartments, pigmentation defects, and mild tail curvature. (D) Percent of affected embryos at 2 dpf (ctl MO vs. dnm2 MO p<0.0001, ctl MO vs. dnm2-like MO p<0.0001; Fisher’s exact test). The total number of embryos is noted above each bar.