FIGURE 1

Erythroid maturation is disrupted in zebrafish mutant^cas7. (A,B) Light microscope images of zebrafish wild-type (WT) sibling and mutant^cas7 embryos at 3 dpf. (C–H) WISH analysis of ae1-globin (C,D), alas2 (E,F), and band3 (G,H) expression in sibling and mutant^cas7 embryos at 3 dpf. After WISH and photographing, all embryos were extracted for genomic DNA and genotyped by sequencing, then the mutant percentage was evaluated. The number of embryos in a het-het incross clutch with the expression pattern is shown in the mutant^cas7 column and corresponding percentages are listed inside each panel. Arrow in panel (E,F) indicates the alas2 staining in heart region. (I,J) Giemsa staining for erythrocytes at 4 dpf in sibling and mutant^cas7. Relative to the number of orthochromatophilic erythroblasts, mutant^cas7 displayed a marked increase in circulating polychromatophilic erythroblasts compared with sibling. Scale bars represent 10 μm. (K) Statistical analysis of the nucleus-to-cytoplasm (N/C) ratio in sibling and mutant^cas7. N = 100, error bars represent SEM. ****p ≤ 0.0001. (L) The relative expression of αe1-globin, alas2, band3 in sibling and mutant^cas7 embryos at 3 dpf. Error bars represent SEM. *p ≤ 0.05; **p ≤ 0.01; *** p ≤ 0.001.