Fig. 1

mir-126 mutant zebrafish develop edema and exhibit lymphatic hypoplasia. (A) Ventral view of wild-type and mir-126 mutant (mir-126a^-/-; mir-126b^-/-) siblings at 10 dpf. The strong periorbital and trunk edema is observed in almost all mutant larvae at this stage. (B) Penetrance of the edema phenotype in mutant and morphant larvae over time. Combined results from mir-126a^-/-; mir-126b^+/- and mir-126a^+/-; mir-126b^-/- incrosses. All animals appear unaffected at 3 dpf. The phenotype starts to become evident at 5 dpf and affects close to 100% of the mir-126a^-/-; mir-126b^-/- larvae by 10 dpf. A low penetrance of the edema can be seen in the other genotypes. mir-126 MO injected larvae exhibit a similar penetrance pattern. Error bars represent 95% confidence interval. 78 larvae analysed for each time-point (minimum 17 per genotype). (C,D) Representative confocal images and cartoons (side views, anterior to the left, dorsal up) of mir-126 heterozygous (mir-126a^+/-; mir-126b^+/-) and mir-126 mutant (mir-126a^-/-; mir-126b^-/-) facial lymphatic network at 5 dpf, highlighted using the Tg(lyve1:DsRed2) line. Lateral Facial Lymphatic (LFL) and Medial Facial Lymphatic (MFL) vessel development is affected in mutant larvae. (E) Quantification of LFL and MFL vessel length shows a significant reduction in mir-126 mutants. Single mutants do not show consistent reduction in vessel length. n mutants. Single mutan. Error bars represent Standard Deviation. Unpaired Student's t-test was performed to test for statistical significance.