Department of Biology and GRAST, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
Dev Dyn. 2010 Feb;239(2):592-7. doi: 10.1002/dvdy.22166.
The insulation of axons in the vertebrate nervous system by myelin is essential for efficient axonal conduction. Myelination disruption and remyelination failure can cause human diseases, such as multiple sclerosis and hereditary myelin diseases. However, despite progress in understanding myelination regulation, many important questions remain unanswered. To investigate the mechanisms underlying myelination in vivo, we generated transgenic zebrafish expressing enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) under the control of the mbp promoter. This transgenic fish displayed faithful EGFP expression in oligodendrocytes and Schwann cells in embryonic and adult zebrafish. Interestingly, although myelination progressed continuously in the postembryonic central nervous system, some of the spinal cord regions were filled with unmyelinated axons even in the adult spinal cord, suggesting functional differences between myelinated and unmyelinated axons. Our results suggest that this transgenic zebrafish could be a valuable animal model to study oligodendrocyte differentiation and myelination in vivo.
脊椎动物神经系统中轴突的髓鞘绝缘对于有效的轴突传导至关重要。髓鞘的破坏和再髓鞘的失败会导致人类疾病，如多发性硬化症和遗传性髓鞘疾病。然而，尽管对髓鞘调节的理解取得了进展，但仍有许多重要问题尚未得到解答。为了研究体内髓鞘形成的机制，我们生成了一种转基因斑马鱼，其在 mbp 启动子的控制下表达增强型绿色荧光蛋白（EGFP）。这种转基因鱼在胚胎期和成年斑马鱼的少突胶质细胞和雪旺氏细胞中表现出忠实的 EGFP 表达。有趣的是，尽管胚胎后的中枢神经系统中的髓鞘形成持续进行，但在成年的脊髓中，一些脊髓区域仍充满了未髓鞘化的轴突，这表明髓鞘化和未髓鞘化的轴突之间存在功能差异。我们的结果表明，这种转基因斑马鱼可能是研究体内少突胶质细胞分化和髓鞘形成的有价值的动物模型。
