Development of the microglia population in larval zebrafish. (a) Representative confocal images are shown to illustrate zebrafish larval head development from 1 to 7 days postfertilization (dpf) and microglial cell distribution throughout the developing brain. Upper panels correspond to a brightfield transmission image and lower panels represent the maximum intensity projection of 4C4⁺ microglia (magenta) at each developmental stage. Microglia start colonizing the brain (dotted line) at 3 dpf whereas signal can be detected in the retina from 1 dpf onwards. Scale bar represents 50 μm. (b) Upper panels show 4C4 antibody immunohistochemistry, lower panels show segmented images of microglia morphology at 3, 5, and 7 dpf using the Imaris surface tool. Microglia morphology changes from amoeboid (1 dpf) to ramified (7 dpf) with an intermediate feature at 5 dpf. Scale bar represents 10 μm. (c) Schematic representation of the protocol used to isolate 4C4⁺ microglia from larval zebrafish brains at 3, 5, and 7 dpf. All images represent maximum intensity projections of confocal stacks. Images were captured using a Zeiss LSM710 confocal microscope with a 20×/NA 0.8 objective [Color figure can be viewed at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com]

ZFIN is incorporating published figure images and captions as part of an ongoing project. Figures from some publications have not yet been curated, or are not available for display because of copyright restrictions.