The Zebrafish Anillin-eGFP Reporter Marks Late Dividing Retinal Precursors and Stem Cells Entering Neuronal Lineages

PLoS One. 2017 Jan 20;12(1):e0170356. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0170356. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Monitoring cycling behaviours of stem and somatic cells in the living animal is a powerful tool to better understand tissue development and homeostasis. The tg(anillin:anillin-eGFP) transgenic line carries the full-length zebrafish F-actin binding protein Anillin fused to eGFP from a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) containing Anillin cis-regulatory sequences. Here we report the suitability of the Anillin-eGFP reporter as a direct indicator of cycling cells in the late embryonic and post-embryonic retina. We show that combining the anillin:anillin-eGFP with other transgenes such as ptf1a:dsRed and atoh7:gap-RFP allows obtaining spatial and temporal resolution of the mitotic potentials of specific retinal cell populations. This is exemplified by the analysis of the origin of the previously reported apically and non-apically dividing late committed precursors of the photoreceptor and horizontal cell layers.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cell Division
  • Cell Lineage
  • Contractile Proteins / genetics*
  • Genes, Reporter*
  • Green Fluorescent Proteins / genetics*
  • Neurons / cytology*
  • Retina / cytology*
  • Zebrafish / genetics*

Substances

  • Contractile Proteins
  • anillin
  • enhanced green fluorescent protein
  • Green Fluorescent Proteins

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) research grants to Lucia Poggi [PO 1440/1-1] and to Saadettin Sel [SE 1995/1-1]. We acknowledge the financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg within the funding programme Open Access Publishing. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.