Fig. 1. Notochord morphology in chongmague. All images show the
notochord-specific bra:GFP transgene (white in A-C, green in D-I).
Although not fused to any localization signal, the GFP is consistently
brighter in the nucleus and cell cortex, and also brighter in the eight
secondary lineage notochord cells at the posterior tip of the tail. Panels D-I
also show the actin cytoskeleton labeled with phallacidin in red. (A-C)
Maximum intensity projections of confocal stacks through identically staged
wild-type (A), chm/chm (B) and aim/aim (C)
embryos. Anterior to the top. Green arrowheads in B show notochord cells at
the edges of the notochord that have their long axes inappropriately oriented
along the anteroposterior and not the mediolateral axis. (D,F)
Mid-tailbud-stage wild-type embryo. Anterior is to the left. (D) A volume
rendering of the entire confocal stack and (F) a single slice at the level
indicated by the blue line (inset). The inset shows a cross section along the
orange line in the main panel. (E,G-I) chm/chm
sibling. Anterior is to the left. (E) A volume rendering and (G-I) single
slices at the levels indicated on the cross-section inset in G as indicated by
the coloured lines to the left of each panel. The blue arrowheads mark an
isolated notochord cell at the periphery of the tail. The red arrowhead marks
a notochord cell interdigitated between two muscle cells. The yellow bracket
marks the characteristic epidermal protrusion at the tip of the chm
tail. Scale bar: 50 µm.