EQUIPMENT SUPPLEMENT REQUEST: Cellular Interactions Underlying Establishment and Implementation of Zebrafish Adult Pigment Pattern

 描述(由申请人提供)：细胞和组织之间的边界的发展是图案形成的关键特征，在成年后期的动态平衡过程中，必须保持这些相同的边界。因此，边界的建立和实施机制具有基本的生物学意义，并对理解出生缺陷和癌症以及再生具有深远的影响，在这些缺陷和癌症中，边界约束消失，而在再生中，边界必须重新形成。这个项目的目标是了解在胚胎后脊椎动物中一个特别容易处理的边界例子背后的遗传和细胞机制，斑马鱼的成年色素条纹。以前的研究表明，不同类别的色素细胞之间的相互作用对于条纹的发育和维持是必不可少的，尽管涉及的特定基因和细胞行为一直难以捉摸。在目标1中，将使用突变和转基因方法、细胞移植和对自然产生的模式变体的分析来测试解释条纹规格及其动态重复的创新假设。在目标2中，努力将重点放在后续模式实现的机制上，测试特定细胞行为和信号通路在提炼条纹模式中的作用，以及这些因素如何改变以产生缺乏条纹的模式。这些研究将为色素细胞边界形成提供有价值的新见解，与人类健康和发育相关，并有望更广泛地阐明边界形成机制的逻辑。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The development of boundaries between cells and tissues is a critical feature of pattern formation and these same boundaries must be maintained during later adult homeostasis. The mechanisms of boundary establishment and implementation are thus of fundamental biological significance and have profound implications for understanding birth defects as well as cancers, in which boundary constraints are lost, and regeneration, in which boundaries must be formed anew. The goal of this project is to understand the genetic and cellular mechanisms underlying an especially tractable example of boundaries in a post-embryonic vertebrate, the adult pigment stripes of zebrafish. Previous efforts demonstrated that interactions between different classes of pigment cells are essential for stripe development and maintenance, though the particular genes and cell behaviors involved have been elusive. In Aim 1, innovative hypotheses to explain the specification of stripes and their dynamic reiteration will be tested using mutational and transgenic approaches, cell transplantation and analyses of a naturally occurring pattern variant. In Aim 2, efforts will focus on mechanisms of subsequent pat- tern implementation, testing roles for specific cellular behaviors and signaling pathways in refining a striped pattern once it has been established, and how these factors have changed to generate a pattern that lacks stripes. These studies will provide valuable new insights into pigment cell boundary formation, with relevance to human health and development, and promise to shed light on the logic of boundary forming mechanisms more generally.