Genetic control of cellular morphogenesis in Müller glia

How the various cell-types of the body achieve their specific shapes is fundamentally unknown. Here, we explore this issue by identifying genes involved in the elaboration of the complex, yet conserved, cellular morphology of Müller glial (MG) cells in the retina. Using genomic based strategies in zebrafish, we found more than 40 candidate genes involved in specific aspects of MG morphogenesis. The successive steps of cell morphogenesis correlate with the timing of the expression of cohorts of inter-related genes that have roles in generating the particular anatomical features of these cells, suggesting that a sequence of genetic regulomes govern stepwise cellular morphogenesis in this system. 12 samples with three replicates each are provided. GFAP:GFP positive and negative cells were FAC sorted from wild type animals from each developmental stage