Antibody Uptake Assay for Tracking Notch/Delta Endocytosis During the Asymmetric Division of Zebrafish Radial Glia Progenitors

Summary

This work develops an antibody uptake assay for imaging intra-lineage Notch/DeltaD signaling in dividing radial glia progenitors of the embryonic zebrafish brain.

Abstract

Asymmetric cell division (ACD), which produces two daughter cells of different fates, is fundamental for generating cellular diversity. In the developing organs of both invertebrates and vertebrates, asymmetrically dividing progenitors generates a Notch^hi self-renewing and a Notch^lo differentiating daughter. In the embryonic zebrafish brain, radial glia progenitors (RGPs)-the principal vertebrate neural stem cells-mostly undergo ACD to give birth to one RGP and one differentiating neuron. The optical clarity and easy accessibility of zebrafish embryos make them ideal for in vivo time-lapse imaging to directly visualize how and when the asymmetry of Notch signaling is established during ACD. Recent studies have shown that dynamic endocytosis of the Notch ligand DeltaD plays a crucial role in cell fate determination during ACD, and the process is regulated by the evolutionarily conserved polarity regulator Par-3 (also known as Pard3) and the dynein motor complex. To visualize the in vivo trafficking patterns of Notch signaling endosomes in mitotic RGPs, we have developed this antibody uptake assay. Using the assay, we have uncovered the dynamicity of DeltaD-containing endosomes during RGP division.

Introduction

Notch signaling controls cell fate decision and patterning during development in metazoans¹, and recent studies have shown that Notch signaling in stem cell division mainly depends on endocytic trafficking^2,3. Endocytosed Notch/Delta can activate Notch signaling in the nucleus and enhance the transcription of Notch target genes^4,5,6. Directional Notch/Delta endosomal trafficking was first observed in Drosophila sensory organ precursor (SOP) cells during its asymmetric cell division (ACD), resul....

Protocol

We have used the AB wild type line and transgenic line Tg [ef1a:Myr-Tdtomato] for the study. All animal experiments were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at the University of California, San Francisco, USA (Approval Number: AN179000).

1. Preparation of zebrafish embryos

1. Set up fish crossing tanks in the afternoon before 5:00 p.m., with one female wild-type fish and one male Tg [ef1a:Myr-Tdtomato] fish by using dividers to separate them in each tank.
2. Remove the dividers before 11:00 a.m. from all crossing tanks the next morning. Keep quiet and do not ....

Results

In Figure 2A, the embryos injected with Atto647N, without binding with the primary antibody, showed background fluorescence in the brain ventricle. Very few engulfed fluorescent particles can be observed in the cells. The anti-Dld-Atto647N injected zebrafish embryos showed large amounts of internalized fluorescent particles in most cells of the developing forebrain (Figure 2A, right panel). After zooming in to focus on mitotic RGPs, as shown in

Discussion

We have developed an antibody uptake assay for labeling and imaging endosomal Notch/Delta trafficking in zebrafish radial glia progenitors with high efficiency. Compared to previous methods used for tracking labeled anti-DeltaD antibody in Drosophila SOP cells^7,8, our method used microinjection instead of incubation of samples in the conjugated antibody. Fluorescently conjugated anti-Dld antibodies were microinjected into the hindbrain ventricle; this technique d.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
35mm glass bottom culture dish	MatTek corporation	P35GC-1.5-10-C
air pressure injector	Narishige	IM300
Anti-Mouse-IgG-Atto647N	Sigma-Aldrich	50185
CaCl2.2H2O	Sigma-Aldrich	C3306
Capillaries, 1.2 mm OD, 0.9 mm ID, with filament	World Precision Instruments	1B120F-6
CSU-W1 Spinning Disk/High Speed Widefield	Nikin	N/A	Nikon Ti inverted fluorescence microscope with CSU-W1 large field of view confocal.
Dumont Medical Tweezers Style 5	Thomas Scientific	72877-D
Flaming-Brown P897 puller	Sutter Instruments	N/A	https://www.sutter.com/manuals/P-97-INT_OpMan.pdf
KCl	Millipore	529552
MgSO4.7H2O	Sigma-Aldrich	M2773
micromanipulators	World Precision Instruments	WPI M3301R
Mouse anti-Dld	Abcam	AB_1268496
Mouse IgG blocking buffer from Zenon	Thermofisher Scientific	Z25008
NaCl	Sigma-Aldrich	S3014
Phenol red	Sigma-Aldrich	P0290
Stemi 2000	Zeiss	N/A
Tricaine	Sigma-Aldrich	E10521
UltraPureTM low melting point agarose	Invitrogen	16520050