Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida, 9505 Ocean Shore Blvd, St. Augustine, Fl, 32080, USA.
Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida, 9505 Ocean Shore Blvd, St. Augustine, Fl, 32080, USA.
Dev Biol. 2019 Dec 1;456(1):86-103. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2019.08.011. Epub 2019 Aug 21.
The transcription factor Pax6 is an important regulator of early animal development. Loss of function mutations of pax6 in a range of animals result in a reduction or complete loss of the eye, a reduction of a subset of neurons, and defects in axon growth. There are no studies focusing on the role of pax6 during development of any lophotrochozoan representative, however, expression of pax6 in the developing eye and nervous system in a number of species suggest that pax6 plays a highly conserved role in eye and nervous system formation. We investigated the functional role of pax6 during development of the marine annelid Capitella teleta. Expression of pax6 transcripts in C. teleta larvae is similar to patterns found in other animals, with distinct subdomains in the brain and ventral nerve cord as well as in the larval and juvenile eye. To perturb pax6 function, two different splice-blocking morpholinos and a translation-blocking morpholino were used. Larvae resulting from microinjections with either splice-blocking morpholino show a reduction of the pax6 transcript. Development of both the larval eyes and the central nervous system architecture are highly disrupted following microinjection of each of the three morpholinos. The less severe phenotype observed when only the homeodomain is disrupted suggests that presence of the paired domain is sufficient for partial function of the Pax6 protein. Preliminary downstream target analysis confirms disruption in expression of some components of the retinal gene regulatory network, as well as disruption of genes involved in nervous system development. Results from this study, taken together with studies from other species, reveal an evolutionarily conserved role for pax6 in eye and neural specification and development.
转录因子 Pax6 是早期动物发育的重要调节因子。在一系列动物中，pax6 的功能丧失突变导致眼睛减少或完全丧失、部分神经元减少以及轴突生长缺陷。目前还没有研究集中在任何有担轮动物代表发育过程中 pax6 的作用，然而，在许多物种的发育眼睛和神经系统中 pax6 的表达表明 pax6 在眼睛和神经系统形成中发挥着高度保守的作用。我们研究了 Pax6 在海洋环节动物 Capitella teleta 发育过程中的功能作用。C. teleta 幼虫中 pax6 转录本的表达与在其他动物中发现的模式相似，在大脑和腹神经索以及幼虫和幼体眼睛中具有明显的亚域。为了干扰 pax6 的功能，使用了两种不同的剪接阻断 morpholino 和一种翻译阻断 morpholino。用任何一种剪接阻断 morpholino 微注射产生的幼虫都显示出 pax6 转录本的减少。在三种 morpholino 中的每一种微注射后，幼虫眼睛和中枢神经系统结构的发育都受到严重破坏。仅破坏同源域时观察到的表型较轻表明，存在配对域足以使 Pax6 蛋白发挥部分功能。初步下游靶标分析证实，视网膜基因调控网络的一些成分的表达以及参与神经系统发育的基因的表达受到干扰。本研究的结果与来自其他物种的研究一起，揭示了 pax6 在眼睛和神经特化和发育中的进化保守作用。
