Dorsal views of 5 day old zebrafish larvae (anterior left) in which
retinal axons were labeled with the lipophilic dyes DiI (red) and DiO
(green).
In wild type larvae, all retinal axons cross the midline to innervate
the contralateral
tectal lobe. In belladonna
(bel) mutants, retinal axons
fail to cross the midline and instead
project to the ipsilateral tectal lobe. The bel locus encodes Lhx2, a
transcription
factor needed for normal forebrain patterning, including formation of
glial
"bridges" in the chiasm region (Seth et al, 2006).
Click to learn how our lab is investigating glial and axon guidance in the forebrain