NFAT5-mediated CACNA1C expression is critical for cardiac electrophysiological development and maturation.

Unlabelled: Entry of calcium into cardiomyocyte via L-type calcium channel (LTCC) is fundamental to cardiac contraction. CACNA1C, a type of LTCC and a hallmark of a matured ventricular myocyte, is developmentally regulated. Here, we identified 138 potential transcription factors by a comparative genomic study on 5-kb promoter regions of CACNA1C gene across eight vertebrate species, and showed that six factors were developmentally regulated with the expression of Cacna1c in mouse P19cl6 in vitro cardiomyocyte differentiation model.

[A brief protocol for sperm cryopreservation and revival in zebrafish].

Zebrafish is an important vertebrate model organism for the study of embryonic development and the underlying genetic mechanism. Numerous mutants and transgenics have been generated in recent years, long-term and safe storage of these fish lines is of crucial importance for every zebrafish community/lab. Sperm cryopreservation and revival has become a preferred method for this purpose, which provides extra and reliable security as a backup for the cost-effective maintenance of genetic stocks in addition to reducing space demanding for housing large amount of live fish.

Efficient genome-wide mutagenesis of zebrafish genes by retroviral insertions.

Using a combination of techniques we developed, we infected zebrafish embryos using pseudotyped retroviruses and mapped the genomic locations of the proviral integrations in the F(1) offspring of the infected fish. From F(1) fish, we obtained 2,045 sequences representing 933 unique retroviral integrations. A total of 599 were mappable to the current genomic assembly (Zv6), and 233 of the integrations landed within genes.