Identification of an evolutionarily conserved domain in Neurod1 favouring enteroendocrine versus goblet cell fate.

ARP/ASCL transcription factors are key determinants of cell fate specification in a wide variety of tissues, coordinating the acquisition of generic cell fates and of specific subtype identities. How these factors, recognizing highly similar DNA motifs, display specific activities, is not yet fully understood. To address this issue, we overexpressed different ARP/ASCL factors in zebrafish ascl1a-/- mutant embryos to determine which ones are able to rescue the intestinal secretory lineage.

A δ-cell subpopulation with a pro-β-cell identity contributes to efficient age-independent recovery in a zebrafish model of diabetes.

Restoring damaged β-cells in diabetic patients by harnessing the plasticity of other pancreatic cells raises the questions of the efficiency of the process and of the functionality of the new -expressing cells. To overcome the weak regenerative capacity of mammals, we used regeneration-prone zebrafish to study β-cells arising following destruction. We show that most new s cells differ from the original β-cells as they coexpress Somatostatin and Insulin.

Identification of downstream effectors of retinoic acid specifying the zebrafish pancreas by integrative genomics.

Retinoic acid (RA) is a key signal for the specification of the pancreas. Still, the gene regulatory cascade triggered by RA in the endoderm remains poorly characterized. In this study, we investigated this regulatory network in zebrafish by combining RNA-seq, RAR ChIP-seq and ATAC-seq assays.