How features of the visual scene are encoded in the population activity of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) targeting specific regions of the brain is not well understood. To address this, we have used a genetically encoded reporter of presynaptic function (SyGCaMP3) to record visually evoked activity in the population of RGC axons innervating the zebrafish tectum. Using unbiased voxel-wise analysis of SyGCaMP3 signals, we identify three subtypes of direction-selective and two subtypes of orientation-selective retinal input. Composite parametric functional maps generated across many larvae show laminar segregation of direction- and orientation-selective responses and unexpected retinotopic biases in the distribution of functional subtypes. These findings provide a systematic description of the form, organization, and dimensionality of visual inputs to the brain and will serve as a platform for understanding emergent properties in tectal circuits associated with visually driven behavior.

SummaryA striking feature of the CNS is the precise wiring of its neuronal connections. During vertebrate visual system development, different subtypes of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) form specific connections with their corresponding synaptic partners. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain to be fully elucidated. Here, we report that the cell-adhesive transmembrane protein Teneurin-3 (Tenm3) is required by zebrafish RGCs for acquisition of their correct morphological and functional connectivity in vivo. Teneurin-3 is expressed by RGCs and their presynaptic amacrine and postsynaptic tectal cell targets. Knockdown of Teneurin-3 leads to RGC dendrite stratification defects within the inner plexiform layer, as well as mistargeting of dendritic processes into outer portions of the retina. Moreover, a subset of RGC axons exhibits tectal laminar arborization errors. Finally, functional analysis of RGCs targeting the tectum reveals a selective deficit in the development of orientation selectivity after Teneurin-3 knockdown. These results suggest that Teneurin-3 plays an instructive role in the functional wiring of the vertebrate visual system.

Previous studies have identified roles of the modulation of Notch activation by Fringe homologues in boundary formation and in regulating the differentiation of vertebrate thymocytes and Drosophila glial cells. We have investigated the role of Lunatic fringe (Lfng) expression during neurogenesis in the vertebrate neural tube. We find that in the zebrafish hindbrain, Lfng is expressed by progenitors in neurogenic regions and downregulated in cells that have initiated neuronal differentiation. Lfng is required cell autonomously in neural epithelial cells to limit the amount of neurogenesis and to maintain progenitors. By contrast, Lfng is not required for the role of Notch in interneuronal fate choice, which we show is mediated by Notch1a. The expression of Lfng does not require Notch activity, but rather is regulated downstream of proneural genes that are widely expressed by neural progenitors. These findings suggest that Lfng acts in a feedback loop downstream of proneural genes, which, by promoting Notch activation, maintains the sensitivity of progenitors to lateral inhibition and thus limits further proneural upregulation.KEY WORDS: Lateral inhibition, Neurogenesis, Neural progenitors, Notch, Fringe, Zebrafish Development 136, 2523Development 136, -2533Development 136, (2009 DEVELOPMENT 2524 differentiating cells in the cerebral cortex in mouse (Ishii et al., 2000). Furthermore, overexpression of Lfng in the chick neural tube was found to increase the number of neurons (de Bellard et al., 2007). These findings raise the possibility that modulation of Notch activity by Fringe homologues regulates neurogenesis in vertebrates.We set out to investigate the role of Lfng in the zebrafish nervous system, in which gene expression studies have suggested potential roles in boundary formation and/or neurogenesis. At early stages, lfng expression occurs at high levels in alternating segments in the hindbrain (Leve et al., 2001;Prince et al., 2001;Qiu et al., 2004), which by analogy with roles in other tissues could underlie boundary formation. In addition, lfng is expressed in dorsoventrally restricted domains in the neural tube (Prince et al., 2001) that could be associated with zones of neurogenesis. We show that Lfng limits neuronal differentiation and is required to maintain progenitor cells. Lfng acts cell autonomously in progenitors to inhibit their differentiation but, surprisingly, is upregulated downstream of proneural genes. We propose that Lfng acts in a feedback loop that maintains the competence of progenitor cells to receive lateral inhibition from differentiating neurons. MATERIALS AND METHODS Zebrafish linesWild-type, mib ta52b Schier et al., 1996), notch1a tp37 (Gray et al., 2001;Holley et al., 2002;van Eeden et al., 1996) and Tg(r3/r5-Gal4::UAS-RFP) embryos were produced and staged according to hours post fertilisation (hpf) and morphological criteria (Kimmel et al., 1995). MicroinjectionBlastomeres (1-to 4-cell) were microinjected with 0.45-1.8 pmol morpholino oligonucleotide (MO; Gene Tools). The ...

We have examined the form, diversity, and organization of three functional classes of retinal inputs to the zebrafish optic tectum during development. Our systems-based approach was to analyze data from populations of retinal ganglion cells labeled with a presynaptic targeted calcium indicator, synaptophysin GCaMP3 (SyGCaMP3). Collectively, our findings provide an insight as to the degree of visual encoding during retino-tectal development and how it dynamically evolves from a nascent and noisy presynaptic neural-scape to an increasingly complex and refined representation. We report five key features: (1) direction-selective inputs are developmentally invariant; (2) orientation-selective inputs exhibit highly dynamic properties over the same period, with changes in their functional characteristics and spatial organization; (3) inputs defined as anisotropic are an early dominant functional class, with heterogeneous response profiles, which progressively diminish in incidence and spatial extent; (4) dark rearing selectively affects the orientation-selective responses: both functional characteristics and relative spatial distributions; and (5) orientation-selective inputs exhibit four subtypes, two more than previously identified in any species. Our approach was to label RGC axon terminals with an indicator of activity and quantitatively characterize coherent response properties to different visual stimuli. Its application in the zebrafish, given its small size and the accessibility of the tectum, has enabled a quick yet robust assessment of multiple functional populations of responses.