Characterization of the cichlid orange blotch mutant

描述（由申请人提供）：利用多能干细胞的再生疗法有望治疗各种病理状况。然而，决定发育过程中来自祖细胞的组织的生长、模式和稳态的机制与成年生物体中参与组织再生的机制在很大程度上仍然未知。鱼类的色素模式代表了一个有吸引力的模型系统，可以直接观察成鱼的模式机制，因为鱼类从幼虫到成鱼的蜕变涉及到色素细胞群的生长和组织的变化，并且再生鳍的能力允许在组织再生过程中检查色素细胞生物学。提出的研究目的是表征自然发生的慈鲷鱼橙色斑点突变体。在成体发育和再生过程中，色素细胞的迁移和分化将通过时空分析进行比较分析，并利用谱系标记对分化状态进行基于情境的表征。此外，橙色斑点基因将在先前绘制的区间内使用定向作图方法和候选基因分析进行鉴定。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Regenerative therapy utilizing pluripotent stem cells holds promise for treatment of a variety of pathological conditions. However, the mechanisms that determine the growth, patterning, and homeostasis of tissue from progenitor cells during development versus those involved in tissue regeneration in an adult organism remain largely unknown. Pigment pattern in fishes represents an attractive model system to directly visualize mechanisms of patterning in adults, since fish undergo larval to adult metamorphosis that involves changes in growth and organization of pigment cell populations, and the capacity to regenerate fins permits examination of pigment cell biology during tissue regeneration. The proposed research aims to characterize the naturally occurring cichlid fish orange blotch mutant. Pigment cell migration and differentiation will be comparatively analyzed during adult development and regeneration using spatial and temporal analysis, as well as in situ-based characterization of differentiation state with lineage markers. Also, the orange blotch gene will be identified within the previously mapped interval using a directed mapping approach and candidate gene analysis.