Figure 4. Expression differences and expression correlations of predicted transcription factors in fin samples of N. meeli.

Fins and fin regions coded as in Fig. 1A. (A) The overall expression levels per fin, averaged across fin regions, of six transcription factors. (B) The expression levels of five selected transcription factors, ap2a, irf1, irf2, mef2c and pou3f2, compared among anatomically equivalent fin regions. The last row represents expression levels in the distal fin regions corrected for the melanophore numbers. Pairwise differences between fin regions are indicated by the letter codes of fin regions with significantly lower expression (P < 0.01) above bars. Error bars represent standard deviations calculated from four biological replicates and the comparisons between groups were done by using Tukey-HSD. (C) Significant expression correlations between seven target genes and five transcription factors examined in this study. Pearson correlation coefficients (r) were calculated to assess pairwise expression similarities between genes. Blue and red shadings mark positive and negative expression correlation coefficients, respectively, which were significant with P < 0.01 (df = 11) in 2-tailed tests.