Fig. 4

Cellular mechanism of color pattern ontogenesis in A. ocellaris. a–d Dose-dependent modifications of color pattern (left and middle panel) and iridescence of the eye (right panel) after 13 days of TAE684 drug treatment of A. ocellaris at 18 dph at 0.6 μM (d) and 0.3 μM (b, c) compared to DMSO (control, a). e Cumulative histogram of fishes having fully stripes: one stripe (head—red), two stripes (head and trunk—green), or three stripes (blue) in control (n = 6), TAE 0.3 μM (n = 16) and TAE 0.6 μM (n = 3). f Stereomicroscope pictures showing the three types of chromatophores within the trunk of juvenile A. ocellaris. (g, h, n = 4). Live imaging pictures of the same A. ocellaris individual at 10 dph (g) and 11 dph (h) show that during medial white stripe formation, the distance increases between melanophores underlined with red dots and melanophores underlined with blue dots