Fig. 8. Impaired coordination of Cyp26b1 cKO mice on balance beam.
a Quantification of rotarod tests. Each mouse was placed on a rotating rod, which accelerated from 5 to 40 r.p.m. over a 5-min period. Cyp26b1 cKO and Foxg1Cre;Cyp26b1lox/+ controls exhibited similar motor performance on day 1 of the trial (90.3 ± 15.9 s in mutants, n = 10, vs. 65.3 ± 6.5 s in controls, n = 10, P = 0.2573). Cyp26b1 cKO mutants were able to stay on rod longer than controls on the second day of testing (123.3 ± 11.0 s mutants vs. 71.7 ± 7.5 s controls, P = 0.0003) and third day (141.2 ± 17.8 s mutants vs. 85.7 ± 9.5 s controls, P = 0.0037). The two-way ANOVA with multiple comparisons was applied. b Quantification of speed to traverse 60 cm distance on a 20-mm-wide beam. Cyp26b1 cKO mutants moved slower (0.083 ± 0.014 m/s, n = 6) than controls (0.148 ± 0.011 m/s, n = 5, P = 0.0056, unpaired t test). c Quantification of time taken to cross 40 cm distance on a 6-mm-wide beam. Half of Cyp26b1 cKO mutants failed to traverse the beam in 2 min (3/6), whereas most of controls reached the endpoints within 30 s (4/5). By assigning 2 min for all the mice that failed to complete the 40 cm distance, Cyp26b1 cKO mutants moved slower (taking 84.0 ± 19.24 s to traverse the beam) than controls (33.0 ± 22.04 s for controls, P = 0.0099, unpaired t test). Error bars: SEM. **P < 0.01 and ***P < 0.001. TO, time out; n.s., not significant.