Merkel cells are absent from the skin of adult Krt14; Atoh1CKO animals. All tissue was obtained from 22–25 day old mice. Tissue was prepared for wholemount X-gal staining (A, B, D, E, G, H, J, K, M, N, P, Q) or immunostaining (C-C‴, F-F‴, I-I‴, L-L‴, O-O‴, R-R‴). (A-F‴) Back skin from Krt14+/+; Atoh1LacZ/flox (Atoh1LacZ/+; A-C‴) and Krt14; Atoh1CKO (D-F‴) animals. (H-L‴) Whisker pad from Krt14+/+; Atoh1LacZ/flox (G-I‴) and Krt14; Atoh1CKO (J-L‴) animals. (M-R‴) Foot pad from Krt14+/+; Atoh1LacZ/flox (M-O‴) and Krt14; Atoh1CKO (P-R‴) animals. Boxes in (A, D, G, J, M, P) denote areas shown in (B, E, H, K, N, Q), respectively; boxes in immunostaining panels denote regions shown in subpanels. Arrowheads in subpanels denote double-labeled cells. No keratin 8-positive cells were found in Krt14; Atoh1CKO animals in any skin region. Punctate X-gal and β-galactosidase staining (brackets) is present in epidermal cells of touch domes, whisker follicles and foot pads in Krt14; Atoh1CKO animals. Scale bars: 300 μm (A, D, G, J, M, P), 50 μm all other panels, 25 μm subpanels.