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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Jul 23.
Published in final edited form as: J Exp Biol. 2019 Mar 8;222(Pt 5):jeb194431. doi: 10.1242/jeb.194431

Figure 6. Specificity of gene expression and differentiation by taxon and pigmentation intensity.

Figure 6

A) Boxplot of the specificity index of targeted genes. TYRP1, HPGDS, and SLC45A2 are near-exclusively expressed in melanocytes and do not in specificity (post-hoc Tukey test), p>0.05) for all comparisons). MITF transcripts are significantly less specific to melanocytes, but include a variety of other cell types. The ACTB control is ubiquitously expressed. Highly significant comparisons among (p<0.001, post-hoc Tukey test) are indicated among groups of genes with a triple asterisk. (n = 8).

B) Notched boxplot of raw counts (ACTB gene) or normalized in situ RCA signals of targeted mRNA transcripts (HPGDS, SLC45A2, TYRP1, MITF) in melanocytes at 1000 μm above the dermal papilla of carrion crow (CC) and hooded crow (HC) torso feathers. Gene expression of all four genes is significantly higher in melanocytes of carrion crow (CC black), compared to hooded crows (HC grey) (see Table 1). For gene expression of head see Supplementary Figure S5. (n = 30)