Spatiotemporal features of neurogenesis in the retina of medaka, Oryzias latipes

Abstract

The vertebrate retina is very well conserved in evolution. Its structure and functional features are very similar in phyla as different as primates and teleost fish. Here, we describe the spatiotemporal characteristics of neurogenesis in the retina of a teleost, medaka, and compare them with other species, primarily the zebrafish. Several intriguing differences are observed between medaka and zebrafish. For example, photoreceptor differentiation in the medaka retina starts independently in two different areas, and at more advanced stages of differentiation, medaka and zebrafish retinae display obviously different patterns of the photoreceptor cell mosaic. Medaka and zebrafish evolutionary lineages are thought to have separated from each other 110 million years ago, and so the differences between these species are not unexpected, and may be exploited to gain insight into the architecture of developmental pathways. Importantly, this work highlights the benefits of using multiple teleost models in parallel to understand a developmental process. Developmental Dynamics 237:3870 -3881, 2008.

Eye development and retinal differentiation in an altricial fish species, the senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis, Kaup 1858)

“…In the early stage of development, the undifferentiated retina is composed of a retinal neuroepithelium formed of a common multipotent retinal progenitor cell population that gives rise to all neurons and Müller glia in a loose temporal order (Turner and Cepko, '87). The differentiation process in the fish retina can be analyzed by monitoring the chronotopographical appearance of the layered retinal structure and functional synapses, the arrest of proliferative activity, or the appearance of a variety of neurochemical macromolecules selectively expressed by retinal cell types (Sandy and Blaxter, '80; Sharma and Ungar, '80; Vecino et al, '93; Kvenseth et al, '96; de Miguel Villegas et al, '97; Hagedorn et al, '98; Doldán et al, '99; Hu and Easter, '99; Helvik et al, 2001; Peterson et al, 2001; Mader and Cameron, 2004; Candal et al, 2005a, 2008; Arenzana et al, 2006; Kitambi and Malicki, 2008; Bejarano‐Escobar et al, 2009). Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), an antigen expressed in the nuclei of cells during DNA replication, has previously been used to identify proliferating precursor cells in the teleost fish retina (Mack and Fernald, '97; Velasco et al, 2001; Cid et al, 2002; Candal et al, 2005a; Bernardos et al, 2007; Thummel et al, 2008; Bejarano‐Escobar et al, 2009).…”

Crb Apical Polarity Proteins Maintain Zebrafish Retinal Cone Mosaics via Intercellular Binding of Their Extracellular Domains

“…Many studies have addressed photoreceptor differentiation (Cepko et al, 1996; Stenkamp et al, 1997; Hu and Easter, 1999; Adler, 2000; Fadool, 2003; Raymond and Barthel, 2004; Yang, 2004; Deeb, 2006; Kitambi and Malicki, 2008), but little is known about how photoreceptors in the vertebrate retinas adjust and stabilize their spatial relationships with their neighbors.…”

An Intramolecular Heck Approach To Obtain 17‐Membered Macrocyclic Diversity and the Identification of an Antiangiogenesis Agent from a Zebrafish Assay

“…These screens were related to a search for compounds affecting epiboly during early embryonic development, [28][29][30][31][32][33] angiogenesis, [34][35][36][37] and neurogenesis [38] in zebrafish embryo assays. The structural information of all compounds tested during this screen is provided in the Supporting Information.…”