Department of Biology and Center for Tissue Regeneration and Engineering at Dayton, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2013 Apr 16;8(4):e61445. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0061445. Print 2013.
Regeneration of the lens in newts is quite a unique process. The lens is removed in its entirety and regeneration ensues from the pigment epithelial cells of the dorsal iris via transdifferentiation. The same type of cells from the ventral iris are not capable of regenerating a lens. It is, thus, expected that differences between dorsal and ventral iris during the process of regeneration might provide important clues pertaining to the mechanism of regeneration. In this paper, we employed next generation RNA-seq to determine gene expression patterns during lens regeneration in Notophthalmus viridescens. The expression of more than 38,000 transcripts was compared between dorsal and ventral iris. Although very few genes were found to be dorsal- or ventral-specific, certain groups of genes were up-regulated specifically in the dorsal iris. These genes are involved in cell cycle, gene regulation, cytoskeleton and immune response. In addition, the expression of six highly regulated genes, TBX5, FGF10, UNC5B, VAX2, NR2F5, and NTN1, was verified using qRT-PCR. These graded gene expression patterns provide insight into the mechanism of lens regeneration, the markers that are specific to dorsal or ventral iris, and layout a map for future studies in the field.
蝾螈的晶状体再生是一个非常独特的过程。晶状体被全部移除，然后通过转分化从背侧虹膜的色素上皮细胞开始再生。腹侧虹膜的相同类型的细胞则不能再生晶状体。因此，人们预计在晶状体再生过程中，背侧和腹侧虹膜之间的差异可能为再生机制提供重要线索。在本文中，我们采用下一代 RNA-seq 技术来确定东方蝾螈晶状体再生过程中的基因表达模式。比较了背侧和腹侧虹膜之间超过 38000 个转录本的表达情况。尽管只发现了极少数的基因是背侧或腹侧特异性的，但某些特定的基因在背侧虹膜中被特异性地上调。这些基因参与细胞周期、基因调控、细胞骨架和免疫反应。此外，使用 qRT-PCR 验证了六个高度调控基因（TBX5、FGF10、UNC5B、VAX2、NR2F5 和 NTN1）的表达。这些分级的基因表达模式为晶状体再生机制、背侧或腹侧虹膜特异性的标记物提供了深入了解，并为该领域的未来研究绘制了蓝图。
