The Role of inab in Axon Morphology of an Identified Zebrafish Motoneuron

The ability of an animal to move and to interact with its environment requires that motoneurons correctly innervate specific muscles. Although many genes that regulate motoneuron development have been identified, our understanding of motor axon branching remains incomplete. We used transcriptional expression profiling to identify potential candidate genes involved in development of zebrafish identified motoneurons. Here we focus on inab, an intermediate filament encoding gene dynamically expressed in a subset of motoneurons as well as in an identified interneuron. We show that inab is necessary for proper axon morphology of a specific motoneuron subtype.