Proximal and Distal Sequences Control UV Cone Pigment Gene Expression in Transgenic Zebrafish

Luo, Wenqin; Williams, John; Smallwood, Philip M.; Touchman, Jeffrey W.; Roman, Laura M.; Nathans, Jeremy

doi:10.1074/jbc.m400161200

Cited by 30 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…It was shown that the adjacent upstream regions of RH2-1 and RH2-3 of 10.5 and 8 kb, respectively, failed to drive the GFP reporter expression (14). These negative results were confirmed for the four RH2 opsin genes by injecting the GFP reporters conjugated to their adjacent upstream regions of 7.3, 2.8, 2.6, and 6.7 kb in RH2-1, RH2-2, RH2-3, and RH2-4, respectively, into zebrafish embryos.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3 g and h). The SWS1up854bp is incapable of inducing gene expression in the retina (14). The krt8up564bp induces gene expression specifically in the epithelial tissues, but not in the retina, and has been used for enhancer trapping as a basal promoter (19).…”

Section: A Distal Regulatory Region Rh2-lcr Was Found In the Rh2-pamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Immunostaining was carried out using whole-mount retinas of 7 dpf larvae or with adult retinal sections following the procedure of Luo et al (14). Antibodies against zebrafish opsins raised in rabbits were provided by T. Vihtelic (University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN) (15) and were used to stain cone photoreceptors.…”

Section: Construction Of Rh2/gfp-pac⌬lcr and Rh2/gfp-pac>lcr Clonesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Identification of a locus control region for quadruplicated green-sensitive opsin genes in zebrafish

Tsujimura

Chinen

Kawamura

2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

113

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Duplication of opsin genes has a crucial role in the evolution of visual system. Zebrafish have four green-sensitive (RH2) opsin genes (RH2-1, RH2-2, RH2-3, and RH2-4) arrayed in tandem. They are expressed in the short member of the double cones (SDC) but differ in expression areas in the retina and absorption spectra of their encoding photopigments. The shortest and the second shortest wavelength subtypes, RH2-1 and RH2-2, are expressed in the central-to-dorsal retina. The longer wavelength subtype, RH2-3, is expressed circumscribing the RH2-1/RH2-2 area, and the longest subtype, RH2-4, is expressed further circumscribing the RH2-3 area and mainly occupying the ventral retina. The present report shows that a 0.5-kb region located 15 kb upstream of the RH2 gene array is an essential regulator for their expression. When the 0.5-kb region was deleted from a P1-artificial chromosome (PAC) clone encompassing the four RH2 genes and when one of these genes was replaced with a reporter GFP gene, the GFP expression in SDCs was abolished in the zebrafish to which a series of the modified PAC clones were introduced. Transgenic studies also showed that the 0.5-kb region conferred the SDC-specific expression for promoters of a non-SDC (UV opsin) and a nonretinal (keratin 8) gene. Changing the location of the 0.5-kb region in the PAC clone conferred the highest expression for its proximal gene. The 0.5-kb region was thus designated as RH2-LCR analogous to the locus control region of the L-M opsin genes of primates.gene duplication ͉ GFP reporter ͉ transgenesis F unctional differentiation of duplicated genes is important for organismal evolution and is achieved through modifications of not only coding regions but also regulatory mechanisms of the gene expression in the duplicates. The regulatory mechanism for the spatial and the temporal coordination of gene expression among duplicated genes has been a subject of intense interest (1, 2). Gene duplications have an essential role in the evolution of the visual system. The visual opsins in vertebrates are classified into five phylogenetic types that originated before the vertebrate radiation: rod opsin or rhodopsin (RH1); RH1-like, or green cone opsin (RH2); short wavelength-sensitive type 1, or UV-blue cone opsin (SWS1); short wavelength-sensitive type 2, or blue cone opsin (SWS2); and middle-to long-wavelength-sensitive, or redgreen cone opsin (M/LWS) (3). However, the understanding of the regulatory mechanisms for the differential expression among the five types is still fragmentary. Subtypes of the visual opsins, created by more recent gene duplications, provide an excellent model to study the regulatory evolution of duplicated genes. A well documented example is the locus control region (LCR) of the L-M opsin genes (subtypes of M/LWS) arrayed on the X chromosome in the catarrhine primates (Old World monkeys, apes, and humans) (4).The primate L-M opsin LCR is located at Ϸ3.5 kb upstream of the gene array and interacts with only the most proximal or the second proximal gene o...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Distal Regulatory Region Rh2-lcr Was Found In the Rh2-pamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Construction Of Rh2/gfp-pac⌬lcr and Rh2/gfp-pac>lcr Clonesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Identification of a locus control region for quadruplicated green-sensitive opsin genes in zebrafish

Tsujimura

Chinen

Kawamura

2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

113

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“…At 7-8 days post-fertilization (dpf), the percentage of the eyes with GFP signal among all the eyes examined was taken as a measure of the efficiency of the transgene expression. The GFP-positive eyes were further distinguished into three levels by the number of GFP-positive cells per eye as follows: ϩϩϩ (Ͼ50 cells), ϩϩ (5-50 cells), and ϩ (1-4 cells), as in previous studies (30,31). Whereas the ϩϩϩ and ϩϩ were taken as a significant sign of the expression induction, the ϩ was not.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Immunohistochemistry-Immunostaining was carried out for whole-mount retinas of 5-8 dpf larvae or adult retinal sections by following Luo et al (30). Antibodies against zebrafish opsins raised in rabbits were provided by T. Vihtelic and D. Hyde (University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN) (24) and were used to stain cone photoreceptor cells.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of cis-Acting Elements Repressing Blue Opsin Expression in Zebrafish UV Cones and Pineal Cells

Takechi¹,

Seno

Kawamura

2008

Journal of Biological Chemistry

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Opsin genes are expressed in a cell type-specific manner in the retina and the pineal organ for visual and nonvisual photoreceptive purposes, but the regulatory mechanism behind the tissue and cell selectivity is not well understood. In this study, we focus on the expression regulation of the blue-sensitive opsin gene SWS2 of zebrafish by taking a transgenic approach using the green fluorescence protein as an expression reporter. The zebrafish SWS2 is a single-copy gene and is expressed specifically in the "long single cones" in the retina. We found the following. 1) A 0.3-kb region between 0.6 and 0.3 kb 5 of the SWS2 initiation codon, encompassing four cone-rod homeobox-binding sites (OTX sequences), contains the region necessary and sufficient to drive gene expression in long single cones. 2) A 15-bp portion (؊341 to ؊327) in the 0.3-kb region represses the gene expression in the "short single cones," which are dedicated to the UV-sensitive opsin gene SWS1. 3) An 11-bp sequence TAACTGCCAGT (؊441 to ؊431) in the 0.3-kb region, with its adjacent OTX element, also works as a repressor for gene expression in the pineal cells. 4) Finally, this OTX site is necessary for expression repression in the bipolar cells in the retina. These findings open a way for understanding the complex interaction of positive and negative regulatory factors that govern the cell type specificity of the opsin gene expression in the photoreceptive cells in the retina and the pineal organ. We termed the novel 11-bp sequence as the pineal negative regulatory element, PINE.Vertebrate retina contains two types of visual photoreceptor cells, rods and cones, the former responsible for dim light vision and the latter for bright light and color vision. The vertebrate visual opsins are classified into the following five phylogenetic types that originated before the vertebrate radiation: one produced in rod cells (RH1 3 or rhodopsins) and the other four produced in cone cells with different spectral sensitivity, red (M/LWS), green (RH2), blue (SWS2), and UV types (SWS1) (1). The combined output from the different spectral types of the cones allows an animal to perceive color. Although the selective expression of an opsin gene in a given cone cell is a basis of forming color vision, its regulatory mechanism achieving the cell type specificity remains less understood compared with the mechanism of rod-specific expression studied for the RH1 type opsin gene (2, 3).Non-mammalian vertebrates have multiple extra-ocular photosensors, mainly localized in the pineal complex (4) that secretes melatonin under a regular day/night cycle, the phase of which can be shifted upon its photoreception (5). Several nonvisual opsin genes have been found expressed in pineal cells of non-mammalian vertebrates, such as pinopsin (6), exo-rhodopsin (exrho) (7), and parapinopin (8). It has been found, however, that some visual opsin genes are also expressed in these pineal cells (9 -11). A physiological study has shown that the M/LWS opsin is indeed involved in melatonin supp...

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Conditional and biased regeneration of cone photoreceptor types in the zebrafish retina

D’Orazi

Suzuki

Darling

et al. 2020

J of Comparative Neurology

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A major challenge in regenerative medicine is replacing cells lost through injury or disease. While significant progress has been made, much remains unknown about the accuracy of native regenerative programs in cell replacement. Here, we capitalized on the regenerative capacity and stereotypic retinal organization of zebrafish to determine the specificity with which retinal Müller glial cells replace lost neuronal cell types. By utilizing a targeted genetic ablation technique, we restricted death to all or to distinct cone photoreceptor types (red, blue, or UV-sensitive cones), enabling us to compare the composition of cones that are regenerated. We found that Müller glia produce cones of all types upon nondiscriminate ablation of these photoreceptors, or upon selective ablation of red or UV cones. Pan-ablation of cones led to regeneration of the various cone types in relative abundances that resembled those of nonablated controls, that is, red > green > UV blue cones. Moreover, selective loss of red or UV cones biased production toward the cone type that was ablated. In contrast, ablation of blue cones alone largely failed to induce cone production at all, although it did induce cell division in Müller glia. The failure to produce cones upon selective elimination of blue cones may be due to their low abundance compared to other cone types. Alternatively, it may be that blue cone death alone does not trigger a change in progenitor competency to support cone genesis. Our findings add to the growing notion that cell replacement during regeneration does not perfectly mimic programs of cell generation during development.

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Proximal and Distal Sequences Control UV Cone Pigment Gene Expression in Transgenic Zebrafish

Cited by 30 publications

References 34 publications

Identification of a locus control region for quadruplicated green-sensitive opsin genes in zebrafish

Identification of a locus control region for quadruplicated green-sensitive opsin genes in zebrafish

Identification of cis-Acting Elements Repressing Blue Opsin Expression in Zebrafish UV Cones and Pineal Cells

Conditional and biased regeneration of cone photoreceptor types in the zebrafish retina

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