PUBLICATION

Isolation of a zebrafish rod opsin promoter to generate a transgenic zebrafish line expressing EGFP in rod photoreceptors

Authors
Kennedy, B.N., Vihtelic, T.S., Checkley, L., Vaughan, K.T., and Hyde, D.R.
ID
ZDB-PUB-010404-2
Date
2001
Source
The Journal of biological chemistry   276(17): 14037-14043 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Hyde, David R., Kennedy, Breandan N., Vihtelic, Thomas
Keywords
none
MeSH Terms
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • Animals, Genetically Modified*
  • Base Sequence
  • Blotting, Northern
  • Blotting, Southern
  • Cloning, Molecular
  • Conserved Sequence
  • DNA, Complementary/metabolism
  • Gene Library
  • Green Fluorescent Proteins
  • In Situ Hybridization
  • Introns
  • Luminescent Proteins/metabolism*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Photoreceptor Cells/chemistry
  • Photoreceptor Cells/metabolism*
  • Photoreceptor Cells/physiology
  • Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Promoter Regions, Genetic*
  • Retina/chemistry
  • Retina/metabolism
  • Retina/physiology
  • Retinal Rod Photoreceptor Cells/chemistry*
  • Retinal Rod Photoreceptor Cells/physiology
  • Rod Opsins/biosynthesis*
  • Rod Opsins/genetics*
  • Sequence Analysis, DNA
  • Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
  • Transcription, Genetic
  • Zebrafish
PubMed
11278688 Full text @ J. Biol. Chem.
Abstract
To exploit zebrafish as a transgenic model, tissue-specific promoters must be identified. We isolated a 20-kb zebrafish rod opsin genomic clone, which consists of 18-kb of 5' flanking region, the entire coding region and 0.5-kb of 3' flanking sequence. PCR, Southern blotting and DNA sequencing revealed the rod opsin gene lacks introns. The transcription start site was localized 94 nucleotides upstream of the translation initiation site. Sequence alignment with orthologous promoters revealed conserved cis-elements including glass, NRE, OTX/Bat-1, Ret-1/PCE-1, Ret-4, and TATA box. A 1.2-kb promoter fragment was cloned upstream of the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) cDNA and microinjected into 1-2 cell-stage zebrafish embryos. EGFP expression was detected in the ventral-nasal eye at 3 days post-fertilization and spread throughout the eye. Progeny of the positive founder fish, which were identified by PCR amplification of fin genomic DNA, exhibited EGFP expression in the retina confirming the germline transmission of the transgene. Frozen eye sections demonstrated the EGFP expression was rod-specific and exhibited a similar developmental expression profile as the rod opsin protein. This stable transgenic line provides a novel tool for identification of genes regulating development and maintenance of rod photoreceptors.
Genes / Markers
Figures
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Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping