Fig. 1

Experimental design for feather / scale recombination and RNA-Seq. a. Placode stage feather and scale forming skin were separated to epithelium and mesenchyme to perform recombination experiment. b. After 3 days in culture, epithelium and mesenchyme were separated again for RNA-Seq analysis. c. A scale-like phenotype from an E7 feather epithelium with E9 scale mesenchyme (FE/SM) culture. d. A feather-like phenotype from an E9 scale epithelium with E7 feather mesenchyme (SE/FM) culture. Both recombined skins were then cultured in an incubator at 37 °C, 5% CO₂ and photographed under a Nikon C-DSD115 dissection microscope. The pictures were taken under live skin culture conditions without any staining. Because the lighting was from the beneath the bottom of the culture, the brown color was caused by the culture media and the lighting. FE, feather epithelium; FM, feather mesenchyme; SE, scale epithelium; SM, scale mesenchyme