Activity and retinoic acid drive hair cell spatial patterning in the zebrafish utricle

The zebrafish vestibular otolith organs, like those of other vertebrate species, are organized into central (striolar) and peripheral (extrastriolar) zones that drive different vestibular circuits. How and when these hair cell patterns develop in the zebrafish is unknown. We determined that early-developing hair cells (<36 hours) expressed both striolar and extrastriolar transcriptomic markers. After 36 hours, these hair cells specify into extrastriolar hair cells. Later-developing hair cells (>36 hours) mostly develop directly as striolar or extrastriolar. We observed complementary patterns of RA degrading and synthesizing enzymes that colocalize with striolar and extrastriolar zones, respectively, suggesting evolutionarily conserved molecular signaling. RA treatment during development increased the relative proportion of extrastriolar and intermediate-type hair cells, indicating that enriched RA reduces striolar development. However, in fish with mechanotransduction dysfunction ..., , # Activity and retinoic acid drive hair cell spatial patterning in the zebrafish utricle

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.hmgqnk9xs](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hmgqnk9xs)

## Description of the data and file structure

These datasets contain processed data from molecular and cellular analyses of hair cell development in the larval zebrafish and data produced from a computational pipeline for spatial analyses of utricles. This study investigates how and when striolar and extrastriolar hair cell types emerge during early development of the zebrafish as described in Baeza-Loya et al., 2026 ([https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.17.687290](https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.17.687290)).

### Files and variables:

For a description of how cell count data were collected and spatial analyses data generated, please refer to the Methods section of the manuscript (Baeza-Loya et al., 2026) ([https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.17.687290](https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.17.687290)).  

Each file corresponds to ..., ,