Fig. 2

The structure of craniofacial cartilage is disorganised upon knockdown of esrra.

(A–H) Embryos were injected with either MOctrl or MOesrra and subject to alcian blue staining at 3- or 4 dpf as indicated. Craniofacial cartilage, especially ceratohyal (CH) and ceratobranchial (CB) cartilage, are abnormally developed in MOesrra-injected embryos when compared to control embryos. Note that the structure of neural cranium is well organised although smaller in size in MOesrra-injected embryos (compare C and G with D and H). (I–K) sox10:GPF (I,J) or fli1:GFP (K,L) transgenic embryos were used to confirm the cartilage defects upon knockdown of MOesrra. (M–P) Human ESRRa mRNA (hESRRa) was co-injected with MOesrra into 1-cell stage of embryos which were subject to alcian blue staining. Embryos co-injected with hESRRa and MOesrra show partial restoration of CB (asterisk in O) and repress disorientation of CH induced by MOesrra alone (compare O with N). Misexpression of hESRRa at 100 pg does not impair cartilage development (P, see the text for detail). Embryos are shown in ventral view with anterior to the left.