Weiss Julian, Devoto Stephen H
Department of Biology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2016 Dec 22;11(12):e0168335. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0168335. eCollection 2016.
During vertebrate embryonic development, early skin, muscle, and bone progenitor populations organize into segments known as somites. Defects in this conserved process of segmentation lead to skeletal and muscular deformities, such as congenital scoliosis, a curvature of the spine caused by vertebral defects. Environmental stresses such as hypoxia or heat shock produce segmentation defects, and significantly increase the penetrance and severity of vertebral defects in genetically susceptible individuals. Here we show that a brief exposure to a high osmolarity solution causes reproducible segmentation defects in developing zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos. Both osmotic shock and heat shock produce border defects in a dose-dependent manner, with an increase in both frequency and severity of defects. We also show that osmotic treatment has a delayed effect on somite development, similar to that observed in heat shocked embryos. Our results establish osmotic shock as an alternate experimental model for stress, affecting segmentation in a manner comparable to other known environmental stressors. The similar effects of these two distinct environmental stressors support a model in which a variety of cellular stresses act through a related response pathway that leads to disturbances in the segmentation process.
在脊椎动物胚胎发育过程中，早期的皮肤、肌肉和骨骼祖细胞群会组织形成称为体节的节段。这种保守的节段化过程出现缺陷会导致骨骼和肌肉畸形，如先天性脊柱侧凸，这是一种由脊椎缺陷引起的脊柱弯曲。缺氧或热休克等环境压力会导致节段化缺陷，并显著增加基因易感性个体中脊椎缺陷的发生率和严重程度。在这里，我们表明，短暂暴露于高渗溶液会在发育中的斑马鱼胚胎中产生可重复的节段化缺陷。渗透休克和热休克都会以剂量依赖的方式产生边界缺陷，缺陷的频率和严重程度都会增加。我们还表明，渗透处理对体节发育有延迟影响，类似于在热休克胚胎中观察到的情况。我们的结果将渗透休克确立为一种应激的替代实验模型，其影响节段化的方式与其他已知环境应激源相当。这两种不同环境应激源的相似作用支持了一种模型，即多种细胞应激通过相关的反应途径起作用，导致节段化过程受到干扰。
