Figure 3. Quantification of silver-stained, X-ray microtomography (micro-CT)-scanned, and segmented larvae reveals wild-type melanin volume and content trends.

Wild-type (wt) 5 days post-fertilization (dpf) larvae (n = 3) were stained with silver and micro-CT imaged under the same conditions then segmented into major pigment regions as described in Figure 2: retinal pigment epithelium (RPE, right and left), dorsal stripe (DS), ventral stripe (VS), yolk sac stripe (YSS), lateral stripes (LS, right and left), and other melanin (other). (A) Volumes of the total pigmented regions and each segmented region are shown for the three fish. (B) Reconstructed stain intensity values are assumed to be proportional to melanin density; integrated intensity values for the segmented regions represents the melanin content of these regions. As proportions of total melanin content (summed across all segmented regions) the wt fish show high concordance between individual samples. Error bars = standard deviation from average.