Fig. 2

A set of images of L2 neuromast and a graph presenting hair cells regeneration documented at 17 h and 22 h in XN treated group post 40 min CuSO4 treatment in 4 dpf Tg(brn3c:GFP) larvae. (a, a’) control neuromast presenting stable number of hair cells. In experimental groups the time dependent increase in the number of regenerated hair cells was comparable, however XN accelerated the process of regeneration in a dose-dependent manner. The average cell counts were as follow: (b, b’) 3 (17 h) and 4 (22 h) hair cells per neuromast in 10 μM CuSO4 treated group, (c, c’) 6 (17 h) and 8 (22 h) hair cells per neuromast in 0.1 μM XN co-treated group, (d, d’) 7 (17 h) and 9 (22 h) hair cells per neuromast in 0.3 μM XN co-treated group, and (e, e’) 11 (17 h) and 12 (22 h) hair cells per neuromast in 0.5 μM XN co-treated group (Fig. 2e, e’). The visualization was accomplished using a Zeiss LSM-700 confocal microscope (20× objective with 2.5 zoom). (f) the graph presenting the number of hair cells per L2 neuromast after CuSO4 exposure and XN co-incubation (one-way ANOVA, GraphPad Prism 5, *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01). Scale bar = 5 μm