Reichman-Fried Michal, Raz Erez
Institute of Cell Biology, Center for Molecular Biology of Inflammation, Münster, Germany.
Bioessays. 2014 Aug;36(8):741-5. doi: 10.1002/bies.201400048. Epub 2014 Jun 13.
The identification of molecules controlling embryonic patterning and their functional analysis has revolutionized the fields of Developmental and Cell Biology. The use of new sequence information and modern bioinformatics tools has enriched the list of proteins that could potentially play a role in regulating cell behavior and function during early development. The recent application of efficient methods for gene knockout in zebrafish has accelerated the functional analysis of many proteins, some of which have been overlooked due to their small size. Two recent publications report on the identification of one such protein and its role in zebrafish embryogenesis. The protein, currently designated Apela, was shown to act as a secreted protein whose absence adversely affected various early developmental processes. Additional signaling proteins that have been identified in one of the studies are likely to open the way to unraveling hitherto unknown developmental pathways and have the potential to provide a more comprehensive understanding of known developmental processes.
对控制胚胎模式形成的分子进行鉴定及其功能分析，彻底改变了发育生物学和细胞生物学领域。新序列信息和现代生物信息学工具的使用，丰富了可能在早期发育过程中调节细胞行为和功能的蛋白质列表。斑马鱼基因敲除高效方法的最新应用加速了许多蛋白质的功能分析，其中一些蛋白质因其体积小而被忽视。最近的两篇论文报道了一种此类蛋白质的鉴定及其在斑马鱼胚胎发育中的作用。这种目前命名为Apela的蛋白质被证明是一种分泌蛋白，其缺失会对各种早期发育过程产生不利影响。其中一项研究中鉴定出的其他信号蛋白，可能为揭示迄今未知的发育途径开辟道路，并有可能更全面地理解已知的发育过程。
