Ton Christopher, Stamatiou Dimitri, Liew Choong-Chin
Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1L5, Canada.
Physiol Genomics. 2003 Apr 16;13(2):97-106. doi: 10.1152/physiolgenomics.00128.2002.
Understanding how vertebrates respond to hypoxia can have important clinical implications. Fish have evolved the ability to survive long exposure to low oxygen levels. However, little is known about the specific changes in gene expression that result from hypoxia. In this study we used a zebrafish cDNA microarray to examine the expression of >4,500 genes in zebrafish embryos exposed to 24 h of hypoxia during development. We tested the hypotheses that hypoxia changes gene expression profile of the zebrafish embryos and that these changes can be reverted by reexposure to a normoxic (20.8% O(2)) environment. Our data were consistent with both of these hypotheses: indicating that zebrafish embryos undergo adaptive changes in gene expression in response to hypoxia. Our study provides a striking genetic portrait of the zebrafish embryos' adaptive responses to hypoxic stress and demonstrates the utility of the microarray technology as a tool for analyzing complex developmental processes in the zebrafish.
了解脊椎动物如何应对缺氧具有重要的临床意义。鱼类已经进化出能够在长时间暴露于低氧水平下生存的能力。然而，对于缺氧导致的基因表达的具体变化却知之甚少。在本研究中，我们使用斑马鱼cDNA微阵列来检测发育过程中暴露于24小时缺氧环境的斑马鱼胚胎中4500多个基因的表达。我们检验了以下假设：缺氧会改变斑马鱼胚胎的基因表达谱，并且这些变化可以通过重新暴露于常氧（20.8% O₂）环境而逆转。我们的数据与这两个假设均相符：表明斑马鱼胚胎在缺氧时会经历基因表达的适应性变化。我们的研究提供了斑马鱼胚胎对缺氧应激适应性反应的显著基因图谱，并证明了微阵列技术作为分析斑马鱼复杂发育过程工具的实用性。
