Ossification pattern of the intermuscular bone in Cyprinus carpio var. color

Abstract:

To further understand the development process of intermuscular bones in teleosts, a modified bone clearing and staining experiment was conducted to investigate morphological development of intermuscular bone in Cyprinus carpio var. color. It is showed that intermuscular bone has different shapes including I type, one-end-unequal-bifork type, one-end-equal-bifork type, one-end-multifork type, two-end-biofork type, two-end-multifork type and tree-branch type. Generally, the morphological complexity of most intermuscular bones in anterior body was greater than that in posterior body. The initial ossification of intermuscular bone was observed in the posterior part of the body at 32 dpf, and then each of the intermuscular bones is ossified anteriorly, and the morphological characters at 53 dpf are the same as those found in adult fish. The primary morphology of intermuscular bone is I type, and more complicated morphology of ossified intermuscular bones are gradually derived from I type during ossification. These results suggest similar ossification pattern of intermuscular bones existing in Cyprinidae, which will also be helpful for us to further understand the molecular mechanism underlying intermuscular bone development.