Overexpression of mitfa induces ectopic expression of progenitor markers for melanophore and xanthophore. (A-G) dct (A-C) and gch2 (D-G) expression in 6 hpf control (A,D), mitfa synthetic RNA-injected (B,E), mitfa and pax7a synthetic RNA-injected (C,F) and pax7a synthetic RNA-injected (G) embryos. Overexpression of mitfa alone can strongly induce ectopic dct expression (A,B; 22/23). Simultaneous overexpression of pax7a suppresses the ectopic dct expression by mitfa (C; 18/18). Ectopic expression of gch2 mRNA is induced by overexpression of mitfa alone (D,E; 20/24) and more strongly induced by overexpression of mitfa and pax7a in combination (F; 26/31). Overexpression of pax7a alone is unable to induce ectopic gch2 expression (G). Scale bar: 250 µm.
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