PUBLICATION

A New Transgenic Tool to Study the Ret Signaling Pathway in the Enteric Nervous System

Authors
Bandla, A., Melancon, E., Taylor, C.R., Davidson, A.E., Eisen, J.S., Ganz, J.
ID
ZDB-PUB-221224-21
Date
2022
Source
International Journal of Molecular Sciences   23(24): (Journal)
Registered Authors
Eisen, Judith S., Ganz, Julia
Keywords
ENS neuropathies, Hirschsprung disease, enteric neuron, enteric progenitor cell, neuronal development, zebrafish
MeSH Terms
  • Adult
  • Animals
  • Animals, Genetically Modified
  • Enteric Nervous System*/metabolism
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-ret/genetics
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-ret/metabolism
  • Signal Transduction
  • Zebrafish*/genetics
  • Zebrafish*/metabolism
PubMed
36555308 Full text @ Int. J. Mol. Sci.
Abstract
The receptor tyrosine kinase Ret plays a critical role in regulating enteric nervous system (ENS) development. Ret is important for proliferation, migration, and survival of enteric progenitor cells (EPCs). Ret also promotes neuronal fate, but its role during neuronal differentiation and in the adult ENS is less well understood. Inactivating RET mutations are associated with ENS diseases, e.g., Hirschsprung Disease, in which distal bowel lacks ENS cells. Zebrafish is an established model system for studying ENS development and modeling human ENS diseases. One advantage of the zebrafish model system is that their embryos are transparent, allowing visualization of developmental phenotypes in live animals. However, we lack tools to monitor Ret expression in live zebrafish. Here, we developed a new BAC transgenic line that expresses GFP under the ret promoter. We find that EPCs and the majority of ENS neurons express ret:GFP during ENS development. In the adult ENS, GFP+ neurons are equally present in females and males. In homozygous mutants of ret and sox10-another important ENS developmental regulator gene-GFP+ ENS cells are absent. In summary, we characterize a ret:GFP transgenic line as a new tool to visualize and study the Ret signaling pathway from early development through adulthood.
Genes / Markers
Figures
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Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping