The zebrafish is one of the primary models of the HRP, as hair cells in its lateral line organ show robust regeneration. Because of its superficial location in the skin, we can watch the regeneration process at the single-cell level using microscopy. We discovered that even within a regenerating cell population, individual cells are not synchronized in their behavior and gene expression. Therefore, conventional
gene expression analyses of the entire cell population provide only averages of gene expression, masking the cell heterogeneity.This project will use single-cell expression analysis techniques to determine how many supporting cell types exist and in future experiments how they respond to damage with high precision.