The zebrafish sensory posterior lateral line (pLL) has become an attractive model for studying collective cell migration and cell morphogenesis. Recent studies have indicated that chemokine, Wnt/b-catenin, Fgf, and Delta-Notch signaling pathways participate in regulating pLL development. However, it remains unclear whether TGFb signaling pathway is involved in pLL development. Here we report a critical role of TGFb1 in regulating morphogenesis of the pLL primordium (pLLP). The tgfb1a gene is

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... ndantly expressed in the lateral line primordium. Knockdown or knockout of tgfb1a leads to a reduction of neuromast number, an increase of inter-neuromast distance, and a reduced number of hair cells. The aberrant morphogenesis in embryos depleted of tgfb1a correlates with the reduced expression of atoh1a, deltaA, and n-cadherin/cdh2, which are known important regulators of the pLLP morphogenesis. Like tgfb1a depletion, knockdown of smad5 that expresses in the pLLP, affects pLLP development whereas overexpression of a constitutive active Smad5 isoform rescues the defects in embryos depleted of tgfb1a, indicating that Smad5 mediates tgfb1a function in pLLP development. Therefore, TGFb/Smad5 signaling plays an important role in the zebrafish lateral line formation.