Khandekar Gauri, Kim Seongcheol, Jagadeeswaran Pudur
Department of Biological Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203-5017, USA.
Adv Hematol. 2012;2012:857058. doi: 10.1155/2012/857058. Epub 2012 Jun 24.
Platelets play an important role in mammalian hemostasis. Thrombocytes of early vertebrates are functionally equivalent to mammalian platelets. A substantial amount of research has been done to study platelet function in humans as well as in animal models. However, to date only limited functional genomic studies of platelets have been performed but are low throughput and are not cost-effective. Keeping this in mind we introduced zebrafish, a vertebrate genetic model to study platelet function. We characterized zebrafish thrombocytes and established functional assays study not only their hemostatic function but to also their production. We identified a few genes which play a role in their function and production. Since we introduced the zebrafish model for the study of hemostasis and thrombosis, other groups have adapted this model to study genes that are associated with thrombocyte function and a few novel genes have also been identified. Furthermore, transgenic zebrafish with GFP-tagged thrombocytes have been developed which helped to study the production of thrombocytes and their precursors as well as their functional roles not only in hemostasis but also hematopoiesis. This paper integrates the information available on zebrafish thrombocyte function and its formation.
血小板在哺乳动物止血过程中发挥着重要作用。早期脊椎动物的血栓细胞在功能上等同于哺乳动物的血小板。人们已经开展了大量研究来探究人类以及动物模型中的血小板功能。然而，迄今为止，仅进行了有限的血小板功能基因组研究，而且这些研究通量低且不具有成本效益。考虑到这一点，我们引入了斑马鱼这一脊椎动物遗传模型来研究血小板功能。我们对斑马鱼血栓细胞进行了表征，并建立了功能测定方法，不仅研究它们的止血功能，还研究它们的生成过程。我们鉴定出了一些在其功能和生成过程中发挥作用的基因。自从我们引入斑马鱼模型用于止血和血栓形成研究以来，其他研究团队也采用了该模型来研究与血栓细胞功能相关的基因，并且还鉴定出了一些新基因。此外，已经培育出了带有绿色荧光蛋白标记血栓细胞的转基因斑马鱼，这有助于研究血栓细胞及其前体的生成，以及它们不仅在止血过程中而且在造血过程中的功能作用。本文整合了关于斑马鱼血栓细胞功能及其形成的现有信息。
