Zebrafish Znfl1 proteins control the expression of gene in the posterior neuroectoderm by acting upstream of and genes.

Transcription factors play crucial roles in patterning posterior neuroectoderm. Previously, zinc finger transcription factor was reported to be expressed in the posterior neuroectoderm of zebrafish embryos. However, its roles remain unknown. Here, we report that there are 13 copies of in the zebrafish genome, and all the paralogues share highly identical protein sequences and cDNA sequences. When are knocked down using a morpholino to inhibit their translation or dCas9-Eve to inhibit their transcription, the zebrafish gastrula displays reduced expression of , the marker gene for the posterior neuroectoderm. Further analyses reveal that diminishing produces the decreased expressions of , whereas overexpression of effectively rescues the reduced expression of in the posterior neuroectoderm. Additionally, knocking down causes the reduced expression of , a direct regulator of , in the posterior neuroectoderm, and overexpression of rescues the expression of in the knockdown embryos. In contrast, knocking down either or does not affect the expressions of Taken together, our results demonstrate that zebrafish control the expression of in the posterior neuroectoderm by acting upstream of and .