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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Jul 12.
Published in final edited form as: J Am Chem Soc. 2017 Jun 28;139(27):9100–9103. doi: 10.1021/jacs.7b02145

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Light-activation of MEK1 leads to elongated zebrafish embryos. (a) Activation of caged MEK1 induces an elongated phenotype through the secreted bmp inhibitors chordin and noggin. (b) MEK1 containing 3 at position K97 is inactive, as ATP is blocked from the active site (PDB 1S9J). Removal of the caging group through light exposure restores MEK1 activity. (c) Time-course analysis of ERK phosphorylation by activated MEK1. (d) Micrographs of embryos imaged at 10 hpf; irradiation was performed at 5 h postinjection. Embryos expressing caged MEK1 only displayed an elongation phenotype when activated through light exposure. (e) Temporal activation of MEK1 reveals a critical time window for activity of the MEK/ERK pathway in the early embryo. N indicates the number of phenotypically scored embryos.