Molecular genetic analysis of embryonic patterning and morphogenesis in zebrafish

在胚胎发育过程中，一个不起眼的细胞球变成了可识别的人类形态。我的实验室有兴趣了解控制这种令人难以置信的转变的分子和遗传事件，并将斑马鱼作为遗传生物进行研究。在过去的十年中，密集的科学研究已经将水族箱鱼Danio rerio（斑马鱼）开发成一种有价值的实验生物体，用于建模和研究人类胚胎发育和疾病-虽然你不能观察一个孩子在母亲体内生长，但你可以研究一条鱼，因为它通过胚胎发育进行。斑马鱼胚胎数量丰富，透明，易于在显微镜下生长-这使我们能够在细胞甚至亚细胞水平上观察胚胎发育。此外，构成发育胚胎的模式化事件、细胞运动和组织重塑在斑马鱼和人类之间是非常保守的。最后，斑马鱼非常适合进行基因筛选，我们已经分离出了破坏正常胚胎发生的基因突变。在这里，我们采用细胞生物学，胚胎学操作和经典的遗传方法在斑马鱼，以确定胚胎发生所需的基因，以及这些基因如何控制驱动胚胎发育的基本过程。

During embryonic development, an unassuming ball of cells becomes patterned and shaped into a recognizable human form. My lab is interested in understanding the molecular and genetic events that control this incredible transformation, and use zebrafish as a genetic organism for study. In the last decade, intense scientific research has developed the aquarium fish Danio rerio (zebrafish) into a valuable experimental organism for modeling and studying human embryonic development and disease - although you can't watch a child growing inside its mother, you can study a fish as it proceeds through embryogenesis. Zebrafish embryos are abundant, transparent and easily grown under a microscope - this allows us to actually watch embryonic development occur at a cellular, and even a sub-cellular level. Moreover, the patterning events, cell movements, and tissue remodeling that structure the developing embryo are remarkably conserved between zebrafish and humans. Finally, zebrafish are well suited for genetic screens, and we have isolated mutations in genes that disrupt normal embryogenesis. Here, we employ cell biology, embryological manipulation, and classic genetic approaches in zebrafish to determine what genes are required for embryogenesis, and how these genes control fundamental processes that drive embryonic development.