Zebrafish Rho Kinase 2 Acts Downstream of Wnt11 to Mediate Cell Polarity and Effective Convergence and Extension Movements

Current Biology : CB. Jun, 2002  |  Pubmed ID: 12062050

During vertebrate gastrulation convergence and extension (CE), movements narrow and lengthen embryonic tissues. In Xenopus and zebrafish, a noncanonical Wnt signaling pathway constitutes the vertebrate counterpart to the Drosophila planar cell polarity pathway and regulates mediolateral cell polarization underlying CE. Despite the identification of several signaling molecules required for normal CE, the downstream transducers regulating individual cell behaviors driving CE are only beginning to be elucidated. Moreover, how defective mediolateral cell polarity impacts CE is not understood.

Zebrafish Trilobite Identifies New Roles for Strabismus in Gastrulation and Neuronal Movements

Nature Cell Biology. Aug, 2002  |  Pubmed ID: 12105418

Embryonic morphogenesis is driven by a suite of cell behaviours, including coordinated shape changes, cellular rearrangements and individual cell migrations, whose molecular determinants are largely unknown. In the zebrafish, Dani rerio, trilobite mutant embryos have defects in gastrulation movements and posterior migration of hindbrain neurons. Here, we have used positional cloning to demonstrate that trilobite mutations disrupt the transmembrane protein Strabismus (Stbm)/Van Gogh (Vang), previously associated with planar cell polarity (PCP) in Drosophila melanogaster, and PCP and canonical Wnt/beta-catenin signalling in vertebrates. Our genetic and molecular analyses argue that during gastrulation, trilobite interacts with the PCP pathway without affecting canonical Wnt signalling. Furthermore, trilobite may regulate neuronal migration independently of PCP molecules. We show that trilobite mediates polarization of distinct movement behaviours. During gastrulation convergence and extension movements, trilobite regulates mediolateral cell polarity underlying effective intercalation and directed dorsal migration at increasing velocities. In the hindbrain, trilobite controls effective migration of branchiomotor neurons towards posterior rhombomeres. Mosaic analyses show trilobite functions cell-autonomously and non-autonomously in gastrulae and the hindbrain. We propose Trilobite/Stbm mediates cellular interactions that confer directionality on distinct movements during vertebrate embryogenesis.

No Tail Co-operates with Non-canonical Wnt Signaling to Regulate Posterior Body Morphogenesis in Zebrafish

Development (Cambridge, England). Jan, 2004  |  Pubmed ID: 14660439

The vertebrate posterior body is formed by a combination of the gastrulation movements that shape the head and anterior trunk and posterior specific cell behaviors. Here, we investigated whether genes that regulate cell movements during gastrulation [no tail (ntl)/brachyury, knypek (kny) and pipetail (ppt)/wnt5] interact to regulate posterior body morphogenesis. Both kny;ntl and ppt;ntl double mutant embryos exhibit synergistic trunk and tail shortening by early segmentation. Gene expression analysis in the compound mutants indicates that anteroposterior germ-layer patterning is largely normal and that the tail elongation defects are not due to failure to specify or maintain posterior tissues. Moreover, ntl interacts with ppt and kny to synergistically regulate the posterior expression of the gene encoding bone morphogenetic protein 4 (bmp4) but not of other known T-box genes, fibroblast growth factor genes or caudal genes. Examination of mitotic and apoptotic cells indicates that impaired tail elongation is not simply due to decreased cell proliferation or increased cell death. Cell tracing in ppt;ntl and kny;ntl mutants demonstrates that the ventral derived posterior tailbud progenitors move into the tailbud. However, gastrulation-like convergence and extension movements and cell movements within the posterior tailbud are impaired. Furthermore, subduction movements of cells into the mesendoderm are reduced in kny;ntl and ppt;ntl mutants. We propose that Ntl and the non-canonical Wnt pathway components Ppt and Kny function in parallel, partially redundant pathways to regulate posterior body development. Our work initiates the genetic dissection of posterior body morphogenesis and links genes to specific tail-forming movements. Moreover, we provide genetic evidence for the notion that tail development entails a continuation of mechanisms regulating gastrulation together with mechanisms unique to the posterior body.

Migration of Zebrafish Primordial Germ Cells: a Role for Myosin Contraction and Cytoplasmic Flow

Developmental Cell. Nov, 2006  |  Pubmed ID: 17084355

The molecular and cellular mechanisms governing cell motility and directed migration in response to the chemokine SDF-1 are largely unknown. Here, we demonstrate that zebrafish primordial germ cells whose migration is guided by SDF-1 generate bleb-like protrusions that are powered by cytoplasmic flow. Protrusions are formed at sites of higher levels of free calcium where activation of myosin contraction occurs. Separation of the acto-myosin cortex from the plasma membrane at these sites is followed by a flow of cytoplasm into the forming bleb. We propose that polarized activation of the receptor CXCR4 leads to a rise in free calcium that in turn activates myosin contraction in the part of the cell responding to higher levels of the ligand SDF-1. The biased formation of new protrusions in a particular region of the cell in response to SDF-1 defines the leading edge and the direction of cell migration.

Bucky Ball Functions in Balbiani Body Assembly and Animal-vegetal Polarity in the Oocyte and Follicle Cell Layer in Zebrafish

Developmental Biology. Sep, 2008  |  Pubmed ID: 18582455

The Balbiani body is an evolutionarily conserved asymmetric aggregate of organelles that is present in early oocytes of all animals examined, including humans. Although first identified more than 150 years ago, genes acting in the assembly of the Balbiani body have not been identified in a vertebrate. Here we show that the bucky ball gene in the zebrafish is required to assemble this universal aggregate of organelles. In the absence of bucky ball the Balbiani body fails to form, and vegetal mRNAs are not localized in oocytes. In contrast, animal pole localized oocyte markers are expanded into vegetal regions in bucky ball mutants, but patterning within the expanded animal pole remains intact. Interestingly, in bucky ball mutants an excessive number of cells within the somatic follicle cell layer surrounding the oocyte develop as micropylar cells, an animal pole specific cell fate. The single micropyle permits sperm to fertilize the egg in zebrafish. In bucky ball mutants, excess micropyles cause polyspermy. Thus bucky ball provides the first genetic access to Balbiani body formation in a vertebrate. We demonstrate that bucky ball functions during early oogenesis to regulate polarity of the oocyte, future egg and embryo. Finally, the expansion of animal identity in oocytes and somatic follicle cells suggests that somatic cell fate and oocyte polarity are interdependent.

Tbx2b is Required for Ultraviolet Photoreceptor Cell Specification During Zebrafish Retinal Development

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Feb, 2009  |  Pubmed ID: 19179291

The vertebrate rod and cone photoreceptors are highly specialized sensory neurons that transduce light into the chemical and electrical signals of the nervous system. Although the physiological properties of cones and rods are well known, only a handful of genes have been identified that regulate the specification of photoreceptor subtypes. Taking advantage of the mosaic organization of photoreceptors in zebrafish, we report the isolation of a mutation resulting in a unique change in photoreceptor cell fate. Mutation of the lots-of-rods (lor) locus results in a near one-for-one transformation of UV-cone precursors into rods. The transformed cells exhibit morphological characteristics and a gene-expression pattern typical of rods, but differentiate in a temporal and spatial pattern consistent with UV-cone development. In mutant larvae and adults, the highly ordered photoreceptor mosaic is maintained and degeneration is not observed, suggesting that lor functions after the specification of the other photoreceptor subtypes. In genetic chimeras, lor functions cell-autonomously in the specification of photoreceptor cell fate. Linkage analysis and genetic-complementation testing indicate that lor is an allele of tbx2b/fby (from beyond). fby was identified by a pineal complex phenotype, and carries a nonsense mutation in the T-box domain of the tbx2b transcription factor. Homozygous fby mutant larvae and lor/fby transheterozygotes also display the lots-of-rods phenotype. Based upon these data, we propose a previously undescribed function for tbx2b in photoreceptor cell precursors, to promote the UV cone fate by repressing the rod differentiation pathway.

Bucky Ball Organizes Germ Plasm Assembly in Zebrafish

Current Biology : CB. Mar, 2009  |  Pubmed ID: 19249209

In many animals, gamete formation during embryogenesis is specified by maternal cytoplasmic determinants termed germ plasm. During oogenesis, germ plasm forms a distinct cellular structure such as pole plasm in Drosophila or the Balbiani body, an aggregate of organelles also found in mammals. However, in vertebrates, the key regulators of germ plasm assembly are largely unknown. Here, we show that, at the beginning of zebrafish oogenesis, the germ plasm defect in bucky ball (buc) mutants precedes the loss of polarity, indicating that Buc primarily controls Balbiani body formation. Moreover, we molecularly identify the buc gene, which is exclusively expressed in the ovary with a novel, dynamic mRNA localization pattern first detectable within the Balbiani body. We find that a Buc-GFP fusion localizes to the Balbiani body during oogenesis and with the germ plasm during early embryogenesis, consistent with a role in germ plasm formation. Interestingly, overexpression of buc seems to generate ectopic germ cells in the zebrafish embryo. Because we discovered buc homologs in many vertebrate genomes, including mammals, these results identify buc as the first gene necessary and sufficient for germ plasm organization in vertebrates.

HnRNP I is Required to Generate the Ca2+ Signal That Causes Egg Activation in Zebrafish

Development (Cambridge, England). Sep, 2009  |  Pubmed ID: 19666827

Egg activation is an important cellular event required to prevent polyspermy and initiate development of the zygote. Egg activation in all animals examined is elicited by a rise in free Ca(2+) in the egg cytosol at fertilization. This Ca(2+) rise is crucial for all subsequent egg activation steps, such as cortical granule exocytosis, which modifies the vitelline membrane to prevent polyspermy. The cytosolic Ca(2+) rise is primarily initiated by inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP(3))-mediated Ca(2+) release from the endoplasmic reticulum. The genes involved in regulating the IP(3)-mediated Ca(2+) release during egg activation remain largely unknown. Here we report on a zebrafish maternal-effect mutant, brom bones, which is defective in the cytosolic Ca(2+) rise and subsequent egg activation events, including cortical granule exocytosis and cytoplasmic segregation. We show that the egg activation defects in brom bones can be rescued by providing Ca(2+) or the Ca(2+)-release messenger IP(3), suggesting that brom bones is a regulator of IP(3)-mediated Ca(2+) release at fertilization. Interestingly, brom bones mutant embryos also display defects in dorsoventral axis formation accompanied by a disorganized cortical microtubule network, which is known to be crucial for dorsal axis formation. We provide evidence that the impaired microtubule organization is associated with non-exocytosed cortical granules from the earlier egg activation defect. Positional cloning of the brom bones gene reveals that a premature stop codon in the gene encoding hnRNP I (referred to here as hnrnp I) underlies the abnormalities. Our studies therefore reveal an important new role of hnrnp I in regulating the fundamental process of IP(3)-mediated Ca(2+) release at egg activation.

Syntabulin, a Motor Protein Linker, Controls Dorsal Determination

Development (Cambridge, England). Mar, 2010  |  Pubmed ID: 20150281

In amphibian and teleost embryos, the dorsal determinants (DDs) are believed to be initially localized to the vegetal pole and then transported to the prospective dorsal side of the embryo along a microtubule array. The DDs are known to activate the canonical Wnt pathway and thereby promote the expression of genes that induce the dorsal organizer. Here, by identifying the locus of the maternal-effect ventralized mutant tokkaebi, we show that Syntabulin, a linker of the kinesin I motor protein, is essential for dorsal determination in zebrafish. We found that syntabulin mRNA is transported to the vegetal pole during oogenesis through the Bucky ball (Buc)-mediated Balbiani body-dependent pathway, which is necessary for establishment of animal-vegetal (AV) oocyte polarity. We demonstrate that Syntabulin is translocated from the vegetal pole in a microtubule-dependent manner. Our findings suggest that Syntabulin regulates the microtubule-dependent transport of the DDs, and provide evidence for the link between AV and dorsoventral axis formation.

Microtubule Actin Crosslinking Factor 1 Regulates the Balbiani Body and Animal-vegetal Polarity of the Zebrafish Oocyte

PLoS Genetics. Aug, 2010  |  Pubmed ID: 20808893

Although of fundamental importance in developmental biology, the genetic basis for the symmetry breaking events that polarize the vertebrate oocyte and egg are largely unknown. In vertebrates, the first morphological asymmetry in the oocyte is the Balbiani body, a highly conserved, transient structure found in vertebrates and invertebrates including Drosophila, Xenopus, human, and mouse. We report the identification of the zebrafish magellan (mgn) mutant, which exhibits a novel enlarged Balbiani body phenotype and a disruption of oocyte polarity. To determine the molecular identity of the mgn gene, we positionally cloned the gene, employing a novel DNA capture method to target region-specific genomic DNA of 600 kb for massively parallel sequencing. Using this technique, we were able to enrich for the genomic region linked to our mutation within one week and then identify the mutation in mgn using massively parallel sequencing. This is one of the first successful uses of genomic DNA enrichment combined with massively parallel sequencing to determine the molecular identity of a gene associated with a mutant phenotype. We anticipate that the combination of these technologies will have wide applicability for the efficient identification of mutant genes in all organisms. We identified the mutation in mgn as a deletion in the coding sequence of the zebrafish microtubule actin crosslinking factor 1 (macf1) gene. macf1 is a member of the highly conserved spectraplakin family of cytoskeletal linker proteins, which play diverse roles in polarized cells such as neurons, muscle cells, and epithelial cells. In mgn mutants, the oocyte nucleus is mislocalized; and the Balbiani body, localized mRNAs, and organelles are absent from the periphery of the oocyte, consistent with a function for macf1 in nuclear anchoring and cortical localization. These data provide the first evidence for a role for spectraplakins in polarization of the vertebrate oocyte and egg.

Biocompatible Copper(I) Catalysts for in Vivo Imaging of Glycans

Journal of the American Chemical Society. Dec, 2010  |  Pubmed ID: 21062072

The Cu(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) is the standard method for bioorthogonal conjugation. However, current Cu(I) catalyst formulations are toxic, hindering their use in living systems. Here we report that BTTES, a tris(triazolylmethyl)amine-based ligand for Cu(I), promotes the cycloaddition reaction rapidly in living systems without apparent toxicity. This catalyst allows, for the first time, noninvasive imaging of fucosylated glycans during zebrafish early embryogenesis. We microinjected embryos with alkyne-bearing GDP-fucose at the one-cell stage and detected the metabolically incorporated unnatural sugars using the biocompatible click chemistry. Labeled glycans could be imaged in the enveloping layer of zebrafish embryos between blastula and early larval stages. This new method paves the way for rapid, noninvasive imaging of biomolecules in living organisms.

Tracking N-acetyllactosamine on Cell-surface Glycans in Vivo

Angewandte Chemie (International Ed. in English). Apr, 2011  |  Pubmed ID: 21472942

Increasing the Efficacy of Bioorthogonal Click Reactions for Bioconjugation: A Comparative Study

Angewandte Chemie (International Ed. in English). Jul, 2011  |  Pubmed ID: 21761519