Figure 3. Sensory hair cells and nonsensory epithelial cells of the posterior crista are clonally related.

A–D, serial, 14 µm sections of the posterior crista demonstrating the PLAP-positive constituents of a mixed sensory/nonsensory epithelial clone. The black line demarcates the boundary between the sensory epithelium (right) and the underlying mesenchyme (left) of the crista ampullaris. The red ovals are picks of PLAP-positive cells that returned the identical sequence tag. Picks 17 and 23 are in the hair cell layer of the crista while picks 32 and 34 are proximal to neural crest-derived melanocytes (white arrows) in the adjacent, nonsensory epithelium (see also Fig. 1, panel D, left, white arrow). The blue ovals (25, 30, and 35) are control picks of PLAP-negative tissue that did not generate a PCR product. The red asterisks indicate location of PLAP-positive cell picks that failed to return a PCR product.