While the role of Otx in eye formation therefore appears to be broadly conserved between zebrafish and other vertebrates [9], we found in contrast that the loss of Mitf transcription factors encoded by the duplicated loci mitfa and mitfb does not create RPE abnormalities in zebrafish, nor the microphthalmia phenotype for which the mouse locus was named. Here, MITF is linked to microphthalmia.