Abstract

The translucency of zebrafish embryos and larvae makes them ideally suited for the in vivo analysis of developmental and physiological processes. This study aims to develop tools for the multicolor fluorescent labeling of zebrafish cells. Previous studies have demonstrated that stochastic DNA recombination can lead to the expression of different combinations of fluorescent proteins in different cells. The combinatorial expression of fluorescent proteins endows cells with many colors, thereby providing a way to distinguish adjacent cells and visualize cellular interactions. We will develop tools that make this technology widely and easily applicable to the study of zebrafish development and anatomy (Aim 1) and generate next-generation reagents and protocols that allow the sophisticated application of this technology to various aspects of zebrafish biology (Aim 2).

Public Health Relevance

Zebrafish is a vertebrate model organism that shares many biological processes with humans. Research in zebrafish has provided important insights into the causes of birth defects and disease. The proposed work is to enhance the utility of this model system by developing tools to label cells in multiple different colors and follow their development.

  Funding Agency

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD067140-03
Application #
8291907
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BDA-L (50))
Program Officer
Mukhopadhyay, Mahua
Project Start
2010-09-15
Project End
2014-05-31
Budget Start
2012-06-01
Budget End
2014-05-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$234,259
Indirect Cost
$94,819

  Institution

Name
Harvard University
Department
Microbiology/Immun/Virology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
082359691
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02138

  Publications

Weissman, Tamily A; Pan, Y Albert (2015) Brainbow: new resources and emerging biological applications for multicolor genetic labeling and analysis. Genetics 199:293-306
Mundell, Nathan A; Beier, Kevin T; Pan, Y Albert et al. (2015) Vesicular stomatitis virus enables gene transfer and transsynaptic tracing in a wide range of organisms. J Comp Neurol 523:1639-63
Xiong, Fengzhu; Tentner, Andrea R; Huang, Peng et al. (2013) Specified neural progenitors sort to form sharp domains after noisy Shh signaling. Cell 153:550-61
Pan, Y Albert; Freundlich, Tom; Weissman, Tamily A et al. (2013) Zebrabow: multispectral cell labeling for cell tracing and lineage analysis in zebrafish. Development 140:2835-46
Pan, Y Albert; Choy, Margaret; Prober, David A et al. (2012) Robo2 determines subtype-specific axonal projections of trigeminal sensory neurons. Development 139:591-600
Pan, Y Albert; Livet, Jean; Sanes, Joshua R et al. (2011) Multicolor Brainbow imaging in zebrafish. Cold Spring Harb Protoc 2011:pdb.prot5546