Ekker M
Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Loeb Health Research Institute, Ottawa Hospital, University of Ottawa, ON, Canada.
Bioessays. 1999 Feb;21(2):94-8. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1521-1878(199902)21:2<94::AID-BIES2>3.0.CO;2-J.
At present, the zebrafish Danio rerio is the only vertebrate species for which a large-scale mutagenesis effort to identify developmental genes has been reported. Several laboratories are now intensely pursuing the molecular characterization of the genes affected by these mutations. One important criterion for the identity of the mutated gene is the rescue of the mutant phenotype by a wild-type (wt) copy of the gene. Until recently, most rescue attempts were carried out by injecting wt messenger RNA (mRNA) into fertilized eggs. A report by Yan and collaborators shows the partial rescue of floatinghead mutants by injection of genomic fragments cloned in either bacterial artificial chromosomes or bacteriophage lambda vectors. Combined with other ongoing efforts to characterize the zebrafish genome, this approach of mutant rescue opens interesting avenues for a systematic functional analysis of vertebrate genes.
目前，斑马鱼（Danio rerio）是唯一一种有报道称已开展大规模诱变以鉴定发育基因的脊椎动物物种。现在有几个实验室正在深入研究受这些突变影响的基因的分子特征。突变基因身份的一个重要标准是该基因的野生型（wt）拷贝能够挽救突变表型。直到最近，大多数挽救尝试都是通过将野生型信使核糖核酸（mRNA）注入受精卵来进行的。严及其合作者的一份报告表明，通过注射克隆于细菌人工染色体或噬菌体λ载体中的基因组片段，可部分挽救“浮头”突变体。结合其他正在进行的斑马鱼基因组特征研究工作，这种突变体挽救方法为脊椎动物基因的系统功能分析开辟了有趣的途径。
