PUBLICATION
A method for isolation of cone photoreceptors from adult zebrafish retinae
- Authors
- Glaviano, A., Smith, A.J., Blanco, A., McLoughlin, S., Cederlund, M.L., Heffernan, T., Sapetto-Rebow, B., Alvarez, Y., Yin, J., Kennedy, B.N.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-161110-24
- Date
- 2016
- Source
- BMC Neuroscience 17: 71 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Alvarez, Yolanda, Cederlund, Maria, Kennedy, Breandan N., McLoughlin, Sarah, Yin, Jun
- Keywords
- Cell sorting, Cone photoreceptors, Flow cytometry, RNA, Zebrafish
- MeSH Terms
-
- Green Fluorescent Proteins/genetics
- Green Fluorescent Proteins/metabolism
- RNA/metabolism
- Retinal Cone Photoreceptor Cells/cytology*
- Retinal Cone Photoreceptor Cells/metabolism
- Dissection/methods
- Zebrafish*
- Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
- Animals, Genetically Modified
- Animals
- Flow Cytometry/methods*
- PubMed
- 27821066 Full text @ BMC Neurosci.
Citation
Glaviano, A., Smith, A.J., Blanco, A., McLoughlin, S., Cederlund, M.L., Heffernan, T., Sapetto-Rebow, B., Alvarez, Y., Yin, J., Kennedy, B.N. (2016) A method for isolation of cone photoreceptors from adult zebrafish retinae. BMC Neuroscience. 17:71.
Abstract
Background Cone photoreceptors are specialised sensory retinal neurons responsible for photopic vision, colour perception and visual acuity. Retinal degenerative diseases are a heterogeneous group of eye diseases in which the most severe vision loss typically arises from cone photoreceptor dysfunction or degeneration. Establishing a method to purify cone photoreceptors from retinal tissue can accelerate the identification of key molecular determinants that underlie cone photoreceptor development, survival and function. The work herein describes a new method to purify enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)-labelled cone photoreceptors from adult retina of Tg(3.2gnat2:EGFP) zebrafish.
Results Methods for dissecting adult zebrafish retinae, cell dissociation, cell sorting, RNA isolation and RNA quality control were optimised. The dissociation protocol, carried out with ~30 retinae from adult zebrafish, yielded approximately 6 × 106 cells. Flow cytometry cell sorting subsequently distinguished 1 × 106 EGFP+ cells and 4 × 106 EGFP- cells. Electropherograms confirmed downstream isolation of high-quality RNA with RNA integrity number (RIN) >7.6 and RNA concentration >5.7 ng/µl obtained from both populations. Reverse Transcriptase-PCR confirmed that the EGFP-positive cell populations express known genetic markers of cone photoreceptors that were not expressed in the EGFP-negative cell population whereas a rod opsin amplicon was only detected in the EGFP-negative retinal cell population.
Conclusions This work describes a valuable adult zebrafish cone photoreceptor isolation methodology enabling future identification of cone photoreceptor-enriched genes, proteins and signalling networks responsible for their development, survival and function. In addition, this advancement facilitates the identification of novel candidate genes for inherited human blindness.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping