Figure 4: Experimental manipulation of Wnt signalling recapitulates natural variation in craniofacial profile. | Nature Communications

Figure 4: Experimental manipulation of Wnt signalling recapitulates natural variation in craniofacial profile.

From: Wnt signalling underlies the evolution of new phenotypes and craniofacial variability in Lake Malawi cichlids

Figure 4

LF larvae have endogenously higher levels of Wnt during preorbital (po) outgrowth compared to MZ. Skeletal preparations of the craniofacial skeleton are shown for LF (a) and MZ (b). Scale bars, 500μm. Deformation grids made in relation to a discriminant function analysis (DFA) reveal that much of the difference between LF (c) and MZ (d) control larvae with respect to craniofacial geometry relates to the slope of the craniofacial profile, which is steep in LF and shallow in MZ. Treatment of MZ larvae with the Wnt agonist, LiCl, results in a pronounced steepening of the profile of the po region of the skull (e) relative to control MZ (f) as revealed by DFA. Alternately, compared with control LF (g) experimental inhibition of Wnt signalling in LF larvae with the compound, IWR-1, results in the development of a significantly less steep and more shallow profile (h) as revealed by DFA. DFA results are depicted for each experiment comparing the craniofacial skeleton between animals with putatively higher (top row) versus lower (bottom row) levels of Wnt signalling during po development. All deformation grids are magnified × 3 to better visualize shifts in craniofacial geometry.

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