Erythroid- and developmental stage-specific expression of an evolutionarily conserved miR-144 gene. (A) WISH was performed at the indicated stages. The expression of miR-144 is first detected in the ICM of 20 hpf embryos and became undetectable at 36 hpf (arrows). Embryos are lateral views with the head to the left. (B) Two-color WISH analysis of miR-144 (black) and myo D (red) in the cloche^m39 mutant and wild-type sibling embryo at 24 hpf. The miR-144 expression is undetectable in the cloche mutant (right panel, arrow). (C) Colocalization of miR-144 (black) and gata-1 (red) at 26 hpf. (Inset) The amplified view of the ICM. (D) The miR-144 and miR-451 genes reside within a region of zebrafish chromosome 5 that is syntenic with the human miR-144 and miR-451 locus. (Left) Eight genes, including miR-144 and miR-451, are located within a genomic region on human chromosome 17, according to the latest version of the human genome draft.⁵³  (Right) Eight zebrafish homologs of these genes are listed according to their map positions on chromosome 5 (Ensembl).⁵⁴  (E) Northern blot analysis of mature miR-144 expression at 18, 24, and 30 hpf. miR-144 duplex and 5S RNA were used as positive and loading control, respectively.