Coordinate development of skin cells and cutaneous sensory axons in zebrafish.

Peripheral sensory axons innervate the epidermis early in embryogenesis to detect touch stimuli. To characterize the time course of cutaneous innervation and the nature of interactions between sensory axons and skin cells at early developmental stages, we conducted a detailed analysis of cutaneous innervation in the head, trunk, and tail of zebrafish embryos and larvae from 18 to 78 hours postfertilization. This analysis combined live imaging of fish expressing transgenes that highlight sensory neurons and skin cells, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and serial scanning electron microscopy (sSEM).