| 1. |
- Ando, Koji, et al.
(författare)
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Conserved and context-dependent roles for pdgfrb signaling during zebrafish vascular mural cell development
- 2021
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Ingår i: Developmental Biology. - : Elsevier. - 0012-1606 .- 1095-564X. ; 479, s. 11-22
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Platelet derived growth factor beta and its receptor, Pdgfrb, play essential roles in the development of vascular mural cells, including pericytes and vascular smooth muscle cells. To determine if this role was conserved in zebrafish, we analyzed pdgfb and pdgfrb mutant lines. Similar to mouse, pdgfb and pdgfrb mutant zebrafish lack brain pericytes and exhibit anatomically selective loss of vascular smooth muscle coverage. Despite these defects, pdgfrb mutant zebrafish did not otherwise exhibit circulatory defects at larval stages. However, beginning at juvenile stages, we observed severe cranial hemorrhage and vessel dilation associated with loss of pericytes and vascular smooth muscle cells in pdgfrb mutants. Similar to mouse, pdgfrb mutant zebrafish also displayed structural defects in the glomerulus, but normal development of hepatic stellate cells. We also noted defective mural cell investment on coronary vessels with concomitant defects in their development. Together, our studies support a conserved requirement for Pdgfrb signaling in mural cells. In addition, these zebrafish mutants provide an important model for definitive investigation of mural cells during early embryonic stages without confounding secondary effects from circulatory defects.
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| 2. |
- Ando, Koji, et al.
(författare)
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Peri-arterial specification of vascular mural cells from naive mesenchyme requires Notch signaling
- 2019
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Ingår i: Development. - : COMPANY BIOLOGISTS LTD. - 0950-1991 .- 1477-9129. ; 146:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mural cells (MCs) are essential for blood vessel stability and function; however, the mechanisms that regulate MC development remain incompletely understood, in particular those involved in MC specification. Here, we investigated the first steps of MC formation in zebrafish using transgenic reporters. Using pdgfrb and abcc9 reporters, we show that the onset of expression of abcc9, a pericyte marker in adult mice and zebrafish, occurs almost coincidentally with an increment in pdgfrb expression in peri-arterial mesenchymal cells, suggesting that these transcriptional changes mark the specification of MC lineage cells from naive pdgfrb(low) mesenchymal cells. The emergence of peri-arterial pdgfrb(high) MCs required Notch signaling. We found that pdgfrb-positive cells express notch2 in addition to notch3, and although depletion of notch2 or notch3 failed to block MC emergence, embryos depleted of both notch2 and notch3 lost mesoderm- as well as neural crest-derived pdgfrb(high) MCs. Using reporters that read out Notch signaling and Notch2 receptor cleavage, we show that Notch activation in the mesenchyme precedes specification into pdgfrb(high) MCs. Taken together, these results show that Notch signaling is necessary for peri-arterial MC specification.
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| 3. |
- Helker, Christian S M, et al.
(författare)
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A whole organism small molecule screen identifies novel regulators of pancreatic endocrine development.
- 2019
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Ingår i: Development. - : The Company of Biologists. - 0950-1991 .- 1477-9129. ; 146:14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An early step in pancreas development is marked by the expression of the transcription factor Pdx1 within the pancreatic endoderm, where it is required for the specification of all endocrine cell types. Subsequently, Pdx1 expression becomes restricted to the β-cell lineage, where it plays a central role in β-cell function. This pivotal role of Pdx1 at various stages of pancreas development makes it an attractive target to enhance pancreatic β-cell differentiation and increase β-cell function. In this study, we used a newly generated zebrafish reporter to screen over 8000 small molecules for modulators of pdx1 expression. We found four hit compounds and validated their efficacy at different stages of pancreas development. Notably, valproic acid treatment increased pancreatic endoderm formation, while inhibition of TGFβ signaling led to α-cell to β-cell transdifferentiation. HC toxin, another HDAC inhibitor, enhances β-cell function in primary mouse and human islets. Thus, using a whole organism screening strategy, this study identified new pdx1 expression modulators that can be used to influence different steps in pancreas and β-cell development.
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| 4. |
- Nolte, Hendrik, et al.
(författare)
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Dynamics of zebrafish fin regeneration using a pulsed SILAC approach
- 2015
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Ingår i: Proteomics. - : Wiley. - 1615-9853 .- 1615-9861. ; 15:4, s. 739-751
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The zebrafish owns remarkable regenerative capacities allowing regeneration of several tissues, including the heart, liver, and brain. To identify protein dynamics during fin regeneration we used a pulsed SILAC approach that enabled us to detect the incorporation of C-13(6)-lysine (Lys6) into newly synthesized proteins. Samples were taken at four different time points from noninjured and regrowing fins and incorporation rates were monitored using a combination of single-shot 4-h gradients and high-resolution tandem MS. We identified more than 5000 labeled proteins during the first 3 weeks of fin regeneration and were able to monitor proteins that are responsible for initializing and restoring the shape of these appendages. The comparison of Lys6 incorporation rates between noninjured and regrowing fins enabled us to identify proteins that are directly involved in regeneration. For example, we observed increased incorporation rates of two actinodin family members at the actinotrichia, which is a hairlike fiber structure at the tip of regrowing fins. Moreover, we used quantitative real-time RNA measurements of several candidate genes, including osteoglycin, si:ch211-288h17.3, and prostaglandin reductase 1 to correlate the mRNA expression to Lys6 incorporation data. This novel pulsed SILAC methodology in fish can be used as a versatile tool to monitor newly synthesized proteins and will help to characterize protein dynamics during regenerative processes in zebrafish beyond fin regeneration.
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| 5. |
- Ober, Elke A, et al.
(författare)
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Vegfc is required for vascular development and endoderm morphogenesis in zebrafish.
- 2004
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Ingår i: EMBO Reports. - : EMBO. - 1469-221X .- 1469-3178. ; 5:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During embryogenesis, complex morphogenetic events lead endodermal cells to coalesce at the midline and form the primitive gut tube and associated organs. While several genes have recently been implicated in endoderm differentiation, we know little about the genes that regulate endodermal morphogenesis. Here, we show that vascular endothelial growth factor C (Vegfc), an angiogenic as well as a lymphangiogenic factor, is unexpectedly involved in this process in zebrafish. Reducing Vegfc levels using morpholino antisense oligonucleotides, or through overexpression of a soluble form of the VEGFC receptor, VEGFR-3, affects the coalescence of endodermal cells in the anterior midline, leading to the formation of a forked gut tube and the duplication of the liver and pancreatic buds. Further analyses indicate that Vegfc is additionally required for the initial formation of the dorsal endoderm. We also demonstrate that Vegfc is required for vasculogenesis as well as angiogenesis in the zebrafish embryo. These data argue for a requirement of Vegfc in the developing vasculature and, more surprisingly, implicate Vegfc signalling in two distinct steps during endoderm development, first during the initial differentiation of the dorsal endoderm, and second in the coalescence of the anterior endoderm to the midline.
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| 6. |
- Reischauer, Sven, et al.
(författare)
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Cloche is a bHLH-PAS transcription factor that drives haemato-vascular specification
- 2016
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 535:7611, s. 294-298
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Vascular and haematopoietic cells organize into specialized tissues during early embryogenesis to supply essential nutrients to all organs and thus play critical roles in development and disease. At the top of the haemato-vascular specification cascade lies cloche, a gene that when mutated in zebrafish leads to the striking phenotype of loss of most endothelial and haematopoietic cells(1-4) and a significant increase in cardiomyocyte numbers(5). Although this mutant has been analysed extensively to investigate mesoderm diversification and differentiation(1-7) and continues to be broadly used as a unique avascular model, the isolation of the cloche gene has been challenging due to its telomeric location. Here we used a deletion allele of cloche to identify several new cloche candidate genes within this genomic region, and systematically genome-edited each candidate. Through this comprehensive interrogation, we succeeded in isolating the cloche gene and discovered that it encodes a PAS-domain-containing bHLH transcription factor, and that it is expressed in a highly specific spatiotemporal pattern starting during late gastrulation. Gain-of-function experiments show that it can potently induce endothelial gene expression. Epistasis experiments reveal that it functions upstream of etv2 and tal1, the earliest expressed endothelial and haematopoietic transcription factor genes identified to date. A mammalian cloche orthologue can also rescue blood vessel formation in zebrafish cloche mutants, indicating a highly conserved role in vertebrate vasculogenesis and haematopoiesis. The identification of this master regulator of endothelial and haematopoietic fate enhances our understanding of early mesoderm diversification and may lead to improved protocols for the generation of endothelial and haematopoietic cells in vivo and in vitro.
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| 7. |
- Yin, Wenguang, et al.
(författare)
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An essential function for autocrine hedgehog signaling in epithelial proliferation and differentiation in the trachea
- 2022
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Ingår i: Development. - : The Company of Biologists. - 0950-1991 .- 1477-9129. ; 149:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The tracheal epithelium is a primary target for pulmonary diseases as it provides a conduit for air flow between the environment and the lung lobes. The cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying airway epithelial cell proliferation and differentiation remain poorly understood. Hedgehog (HH) signaling orchestrates communication between epithelial and mesenchymal cells in the lung, where it modulates stromal cell proliferation, differentiation and signaling back to the epithelium. Here, we reveal a previously unreported autocrine function of HH signaling in airway epithelial cells. Epithelial cell depletion of the ligand sonic hedgehog (SHH) or its effector smoothened (SMO) causes defects in both epithelial cell proliferation and differentiation. In cultured primary human airway epithelial cells, HH signaling inhibition also hampers cell proliferation and differentiation. Epithelial HH function is mediated, at least in part, through transcriptional activation, as HH signaling inhibition leads to downregulation of cell type-specific transcription factor genes in both the mouse trachea and human airway epithelial cells. These results provide new insights into the role of HH signaling in epithelial cell proliferation and differentiation during airway development.
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