EXPRESSION OF THE ZEBRAFISH GENOME DURING EMBRYOGENESIS

Lab De Genetique Moleculaire Des Eucaryo, Strasbourg

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Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): [unreadable] The long-term objective of this application for competing continuation of the grant (1R01 RR15402) is to make a complete description of the spatial and temporal expression of a vertebrate genome. [unreadable] [unreadable] The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is the model organism used to achieve this goal. This vertebrate species displays many technical advantages allowing high throughput analyses of gene expression patterns by whole mount in situ hybridization on developing embryos. The work funded by the current application has already allowed the screening of 13,000 cDNAs corresponding to 8,000 different genes. This application proposes to increase the size of the screen to analyse, in 3 years, the expression of 15,000 genes. All these data will be described and made available to public into the zebrafish community database at the University of Oregon (http://zfin.org). A precise description of gene expression patterns will be provided on this web site in the gene expression section. This description will include keywords, text and a set of annotated pictures of embryos at different developmental stages (from gastrulation stage to hatching). Genes identified in this study will also be freely available upon request at the zebrafish International Resource center. [unreadable] [unreadable] The resources generated in this project will provide a large collection of cell and/or tissue specific markers usable for the analysis of embryonic development and for the establishment of a "molecular anatomy". It will provide starting points for functional analyses (by gain or loss of function experiments and reverse genetic). Finally, many of the genes identified in this screen are orthologues of human genes of unknown function. The establishment of the spatial and temporal expression of these genes in fish will provide a first set of data that will help to analyze their function during mammalian embryonic development. This will provide insights to better understand both normal and pathological human development. [unreadable] [unreadable]