Figure 3

Morphological defects and early mortality in neb mutants. (A) Brightfield images of wt and neb mutant embryos at 6 dpf. All the neb mutants, except neb³⁰, fail to inflate their swim bladder by 6 dpf, show defects in the lower jaw, and some mutants have bent body. (B) Polarized stereomicroscope images showing birefringence of skeletal muscle in zebrafish embryos at 6 dpf. All the neb mutants, except neb³⁰, have reduced birefringence, indicating that muscle integrity and structure are compromised. (C) Quantification of birefringence intensity (mean ± SEM). All the neb mutants, except neb³⁰, showed significantly reduced birefringence. Asterisks indicate p-values (* ≤ 0.05; ** ≤ 0.01; *** ≤ 0.001; **** ≤ 0.0001). (n = 8 for wt; n = 5 for each mutant). See Supplemental Table 2 for intensity value measurements and statistics. (D) Survival curve indicating drastically shorter life span in all the neb mutants, except neb³⁰. (n = 20 for wt, neb¹⁵, neb¹¹, neb²¹; n = 10 for neb³⁴; n = 21 for neb³⁰). Median survival: 11 days (neb¹⁵, neb¹¹), 12 days (neb³⁴), and 13.5 days (neb²¹).