PMC

Stripe patterns of zebrafish. (A) Wild-type (WT) zebrafish with normal horizontal stripes. (B,D,F) Zebrafish heterozygous for leo^t1, leo^tw28 or leo^tq270. (C,E,G) Zebrafish homozygous for leo^t1, leo^tw28 or leo^tq270. The inset boxes in each image show magnified images of stripes or spots on the skin of the fish.

Cx41.8 expression in adult tissues. Reverse transcription–PCR was performed with RNA samples isolated from the indicated adult fish tissues. M indicates molecular size marker. Total RNAs were reverse-transcribed with oligo-d(T)₁₈ primer, and the resultant complementary DNAs were amplified by PCR using specific primers for (A) Cx41.8 and (B) β-actin.

Patch-clamp analysis of Cx41.8 hemichannels expressed in HeLa cells. (A) Establishment of conditions for patch-clamp analysis with HeLa cells transfected with the wild-type (WT) Cx41.8 cDNA. I_m responses recorded in solution with no added Ca²⁺ (upper), with 2 mM Ca²⁺ (middle) and with 200 μM carbenoxolone (lower) in the bath solution. (B) Superimposed I_m traces from HeLa cells expressing WT, leo^tw28 or leo^tq270 connexin41.8, and untransfected HeLa cells (negative control). (C) Bar graph of WT (N=4), mutant leo^tw28 (N=7) and mutant leo^tq270 (N=8), compared with untransfected HeLa cells (N=8, negative control). Data represent the means±s.e.m. Each value was compared with that of WT. ^*P<0.005.

Zebrafish connexin41.8 as a leopard gene. (A) Map of the leopard region. The yellow arrowhead indicates the microsatellite marker z9704. The red bar indicates the bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clone zK53o8, which includes the critical region for leopard. The black bars show the BAC clones located around this region. Green arrowheads indicate single nucleotide polymorphism marker sites. Each site was named as shown above the arrowhead. The numbers below the green arrowheads refer to the number of recombination events ( online). This region includes two genes, bcl9 and Cx41.8. Cx41.8 is indicated by a red arrowhead. (B) Schematic of zebrafish connexin41.8 showing predicted structural motifs and mutations detected in leopard alleles.