Figure 6: Conditional gain of function of mab21-l3 is able to upregulate MCC markers.
From: mab21-l3 regulates cell fate specification of multiciliate cells and ionocytes

(a) Forced nuclear translocation of mab21-l3 slightly increases the number of MCCs. mab21-l3-hGR mRNA (100 pg) was injected into the left ventral blastomere at the four-cell stage, and injected embryos were cultured with or without DEX (10 μM) from stage 10.25/10.5. At stage 33/34, embryos were harvested for whole-mount in situ hybridization against α-tubulin (no DEX treatment, n=107; DEX treatment, n=108, from five independent experiments), and the number of α-tubulin-positive cells was counted. In left four panels, dorsal is upwards and anterior is to the right (uninjected side) or left (injected side). The middle four panels show higher magnification. Scale bars, 500 μm (left panels) and 50 μm (middle panels). Right graphs show the distribution (histogram) and the average (upper right inset) of the ratio of the number of α-tubulin-positive cells in the injected side to that in the uninjected side. The error bar represents s.d. *P<0.05 by t-test. (b) Mab21-l3 upregulates multicilin expression. The tracer fluorescein dextran (200 ng) was co-injected with or without mab21-l3-hGR mRNA (400 pg) into the animal region of two blastomeres at the two-cell stage. Animal caps isolated at stage 10 (left) or whole embryos (right) were cultured with or without DEX (10 μM) and harvested at stage 12 for real-time qPCR analysis of multicilin expression. Shown is the average of five or three independent experiments. The error bar represents s.d.