Zebrafish is an important vertebrate model system for understanding early embryogenesis. Genome analysis shows that 71% of human genes have at least one ortholog in zebrafish and 82% of the known genes responsible for human disease are present in zebrafish. Research on zebrafish embryos could shed invaluable light on human early embryogenesis. There is a rich literature on transcriptome-wide changes that accompany zebrafish early embryogenesis. However, transcriptome-level information is limited because zygotic transcription is silent before the mid-blastula transition (MBT), because post-transcriptional regulation modulates gene expression, and because protein post-translational modifications (PTMs) influence protein function. We hypothesize that high time- and spatial-resolution studies of the early-stage zebrafish proteome will provide new insights into early embryogenesis.
We will reveal the proteome dynamics of zebrafish early-stage embryos with high time and spatial resolution. The results are invaluable for accurate understanding of the important events during early embryogenesis, e.g., early cellular differentiation and early organogenesis. The studies will generate a list of important gene targets for further gene mutation studies for understanding how gene mutations lead to birth defects.
