Students use zebrafish to study spinal malformations-ScienceDaily

The iconic stripes are eye-catching, but the transparency of zebrafish embryo tissue is most appreciated by researchers like Oriana Zinani, a fifth-year doctoral student in molecular developmental biology at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine. It is sex. The zebrafish spine pattern gives it a striped look. It is regulated by a segmentation gene that acts like a clock.

Zinani is part of a team of scientists in the laboratory of Dr. Ertuğrul Özbudak, an associate professor of pediatrics at the UC and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The team is studying genetic mutations that cause congenital scoliosis, a congenital defect characterized by failed vertebrae separation and thoracic disturbance. Zebrafish eggs fertilize and develop outside the mother’s body, making it easier for researchers to visualize in high-resolution images. Zebrafish and humans share 70% of the same gene.

“You can see exactly what’s happening while it’s happening in zebrafish and gain insights into human embryonic development,” says Zinani. “In my study,” How do zebrafish embryos ensure accurate development in different environments, taking into account variables such as temperature fluctuations and exposure to different oxygenation levels? ” I have a question. I realized that embryos need to develop mechanisms to eliminate noise for development, and I’m focusing on what those mechanisms include. “

Scientists have long known that certain genes are paired on the same chromosome and appear together or “co-express” in cells and tissues. In humans, at least 10% of genes are paired on the same chromosome. It’s unclear why this happens, but a team that includes Cincinnati Children’s researchers Zinani, Özbudak, Kemal Keseroğlu, and Colgate University’s Ahmet Ay can separate the two paired genes and they can do it. We conducted an experiment to determine a sexual role. In the development of the spinal column.

The team’s findings were recently published in an academic journal Nature..

Using the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9, the research team conducted a simple experiment using a zebrafish model to isolate two pairs of genes to control the healthy development of the spine. The isolated genes disrupted their co-expression. Instead of the exact segment boundaries that are familiar to zebrafish embryos, fused tissue is seen and eventually fails to form vertebrae.

“Two pairs of functional genes provide normal, healthy development,” says Zinani. “If this is a human, that person will not get sick. If you take a normal gene pair and separate them without any mutations, you will find that the disease develops under environmental stress.”

Images of the gene-separated zebrafish show cracked, broken, and fused jagged vertebrae, Zinani explains. Zebrafish have a phenotype of disease that leads to congenital scoliosis. Researchers have also grown zebrafish with gene pairs isolated at different temperatures to better understand the effects of environmental pressure on development. Paired genes lead to beneficial spinal cord development, especially under environmental stress. Gene isolation is more likely to lead to zebrafish spinal deformities and congenital scoliosis.

“It’s also exciting that many genes involved in the development of diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune diseases are also present in the human genome’s gene pairs,” Zinani said. “More studies believe that the importance of their proximity to their partners is shown. If the process of lining up genes affects healthy development and adult life, then the disease There are new goals to consider when studying formation. “

Ozbudak said Ginani’s work would be useful for future research.

“What Oriana discovered in graduate school can shed light on why organisms maintain a particular genetic sequence in the genome, that is, they regulate the expression of genes that function in the same biological process.” He said.

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material Provided by University of Cincinnati.. Original written by Cedric Rix. Note: The content can be edited in style and length.