The conserved expression in the OFM across species and the coloboma phenotype observed in nid1 morphant zebrafish suggest an essential role for nidogen in optic fissure closure and further investigation of human orthologs NID1 and NID2 as novel candidate coloboma genes (Knickmeyer et al., 2018; Trejo-Reveles et al., 2023). Here, NID2 is linked to coloboma.