Dissection of the role of Pinin in the development of zebrafish posterior pharyngeal cartilages

Abstract

Pinin (pnn), a nuclear and desmosome-associated SR-like protein, has been shown to play multiple roles in cell adhesion, transcriptional regulation, pre-mRNA splicing and mRNA export. Because of the embryonic lethality of pnn-deficient mice, here we used the zebrafish system to investigate the functions of pnn. Injection of morpholinos into zebrafish to knockdown pnn resulted in several obvious defective phenotypes, such as short body, bent tail, and an abnormal pigment distribution pattern. Moreover, aberrant blood vessels were formed, and most of the cartilages of pharyngeal arches 3-7 were reduced or absent in pnn morphants. Because most of the defects manifested by pnn morphants were reminiscent of those caused by neural crest-derived malformation, we investigated the effects of pnn deficiency in the development of neural crest cells. Neural crest induction and specification were not hindered in pnn morphants, as revealed by normal expression of early crest gene, sox10. However, the morphants failed to express the pre-chondrogenic gene, sox9a, in cells populating the posterior pharyngeal arches. The reduction of chondrogenic precursors resulted from inhibition of proliferation of neural crest cells, but not from cellular apoptosis or premature differentiation in pnn morphants. These data demonstrate that pnn is essential for the maintenance of subsets of neural crest cells, and that in zebrafish proper cranial neural crest proliferation and differentiation are dependent on pnn expression.

Quantitative proteomics reveals the dynamic proteome landscape of zebrafish embryos during the maternal-to-zygotic transition

“…Pnn is crucial for regulating neural crest proliferation and differentiation in zebrafish embryos. 59 Nucleolin (Ncl) involved in RNA binding modulates ribosomal RNA (rRNA) transcription and post-transcriptional regulation in zebrafish embryos. 60 Zc3h14 is a polyadenosine [poly(A)] RNA-binding protein and controls the proper length of poly(A) tails.…”

Expression and Distribution Pattern of Pnn in Ischemic Cerebral Cortex and Cultured Neural Cells Exposed to Oxygen-Glucose Deprivation

“…Previous studies have shown that Pnn plays essential roles during embryogenesis [ 1 , 18 ], while the participation of Pnn in tumorigenesis and metastasis in certain types of cancers was also reported [ 6 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. Although several studies have attempted to reveal the role of Pnn in primary astrocytes and corneal cells [ 16 , 23 , 24 ], the role and regulation of Pnn in non-dividing cells, particularly in neurons, remains unknown.…”

A zebrafish model of Poikiloderma with Neutropenia recapitulates the human syndrome hallmarks and traces back neutropenia to the myeloid progenitor

“…Moreover, the concurrence of skeletal defects, disorganized distribution of melanocytes and cardiac oedema has been observed in zebrafish with knockdown of the pinin ( pnn ) gene, which encodes a nuclear and desmosome-associated protein that modulates alternative splicing of a specific subset of target genes 30 .…”