This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The central nervous system (CNS) is a structure of immense complexity and intricacy, whose overall architecture has been conserved throughout vertebrate evolution. The molecular and cellular mechanisms by which the three-dimensional (3D) structure of the CNS is generated during development are not well understood. One of the earliest steps in brain assembly occurs during neurulation, the coordinated movement of cells to form the neural tube, which will give rise to the brain and spinal cord. The Jontes lab has identified an evolutionarily conserved molecule, Protocadherin-19 (Pcdh19), that plays an important role in neurulation. Loss of Pcdh19 function inhibits cell movements that contribute to neurulation, resulting in abnormal brain morphology. The goals of this research are to understand how Pcdh19 regulates cell behavior during neurulation, and the molecular pathways through which Pcdh19 functions. To do this, the Jontes lab uses quantitative in vivo time-lapse microscopy to follow the 3D movements of cells in the developing zebrafish embryo. The results of this research will advance our understanding of the mechanisms of early brain development. The broader scientific and educational goals of this work are to provide a training environment in which students at different levels, particularly those from under-represented groups, will be exposed to sophisticated imaging techniques and quantitative image analysis. In addition, the imaging data that will result from this work will be of high educational value and will be made easily accessible to researchers and teachers.
