The Wilms Tumor Gene Contributes to Blood-Cerebrospinal Fluid Barrier Function in Zebrafish.

The Wilms tumor suppressor gene encodes a zinc finger transcription factor, which is highly conserved among vertebrates. It is a key regulator of urogenital development and homeostasis but also plays a role in other organs including the spleen and the heart. More recently additional functions for Wt1 in the mammalian central nervous system have been described.

Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) Protocol for Podocyte Isolation in Adult Zebrafish.

Zebrafish is becoming a very important model for studying human diseases. The conserved structure of the nephrons in the kidney allows the user to answer questions relating to study human kidney disorders. Wt1a-expressing podocytes are the most important cells within the glomeruli of adult zebrafish.

Function and Regulation of the Wilms' Tumor Suppressor 1 (WT1) Gene in Fish.

The Wilms' tumor suppressor gene Wt1 is highly conserved among vertebrates. In contrast to mammals, most fish species possess two wt1 paralogs that have been named wt1a and wt1b. Concerning wt1 in fish, most work so far has been done using zebrafish, focusing on the embryonic kidney, the pronephros.

Coco regulates dorsoventral specification of germ layers via inhibition of TGFβ signalling.

One of the earliest steps in embryonic development is the specification of the germ layers, the subdivision of the blastula embryo into endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm. Maternally expressed members of the Transforming Growth Factor β (TGFβ) family influence all three germ layers; the ligands are required to induce endoderm and mesoderm, whereas inhibitors are required for formation of the ectoderm. Here, we demonstrate a vital role for maternal Coco, a secreted antagonist of TGFβ signalling, in this process.

Neuronatin promotes neural lineage in ESCs via Ca(2+) signaling.

Neural induction is the first step in the formation of the vertebrate central nervous system. The emerging consensus of the mechanisms underlying neural induction is the combined influences from inhibiting bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling and activating fibroblast growth factor (FGF)/Erk signaling, which act extrinsically via either autocrine or paracrine fashions. However, do intrinsic forces (cues) exist and do they play decisive roles in neural induction? These questions remain to be answered.